LECTURES 



O N 

GITY LIFE AND CHARACTER : 



INCREASE OF CRIME; 



WITH A REVIEW OF 



il LECTURES TO YOUNG LADIES, ON SUBJECTS OF PRAC- 
TICAL IMPORTANCE — BY REV. DANIEL C. EDDY, 



LOWELL, MASS 



J? 



BY URIAH CLARK. 



MERRILL & HEYWOOD, 
LOWELL, MASS. 
1 849. 



^5 



PREFATORY, 



In passing these Lectures to the Press, the Author has been influ- 
enced by the generous solicitation of the Publishers, and a seeming 
demand on the part of many, who were unable to hear them during 
their delivery. They were presented to the Author's Congregation 
on Sunday evenings, in his usual course of ministration ; and as a pecu- 
liar interest became elicited, the attendance on every evening was 
much larger than could be seated. But few were able to hear all the 
Lectures through, and these were desirous of seeing them in their pre- 
sent form, for circulation. 

It is hoped, that the subjects treated, may not be regarded of a strict- 
ly local character. The Author believes them adapted for general cir- 
culation ; and would humbly recommend whatever thoughts and sug- 
gestions are offered in defence of liberal principles, to the careful con- 
sideration of Citizens, Christians, Ministers and Reformers of every 
school. 

It is but just, here to state, that most of the italicised words, phra- 
ses and passages found among the quotations made from the " Lectures 
to Young Ladies," were not italicised by Mr. Eddy himself. 

These Lectures are now presented as they were originally delivered* 
excepting the first, which has been slightly corrected and abridged 4 in 
order to avoid some repititions. Those who understand the difference 
between writing for the Pulpit and the Press, will readily make suffi- 
cient allowance in behalf of the language and style found in these 
pages. 

The Author begs leave to say, in conclusion, that although he has 
submitted this trifling work, to the critical examination of a most 
careful and judicious friend; yet he offers it to the public with diffi- 
dence; and if he can ask for no charity* he can demand nothing but can- 
dor and justice. 

U. (X 

Lowell, Mass., Feb. '49. 



JOHN B. NORTON, PRINTER. 



f 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Aggregate of Crime, - - - - ---- - 5 

Exaggerations of Evil, 12 
Power of Sympathy, either with Vice or Virtue, - - - 22 
Amusements, Use and Abuse, ----------- 33 

Ruinous Severity towards the Guilty, ------.42 

Tendency of Prevalent Dogmas, - -- -- -- -- 52 



AGGREGATE OF CRIME. 

Prov. 8: 1, 3. — Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth 
her voice? She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the 
places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at 
the coming in at the doors. 

No department in civilized society is wholly beyond the reach of 
moral influences. The consciences of men, even in the lowest con- 
ditions of life, are never uttterly dark and insensible. Humanity in 
its worst estate, possesses some traits of a divine origin, and its great 
soul recognises something of the virtue and righteousness taught by the 
universal language of God and Nature. The idea that any of our 
race are entirely corrupt and benighted, is one not only in violence to 
truth, but in impeachment of the workmanship of the Creator. 

Many presses and pulpits have recently said much in reference to 
the supposed increase of darkness and depravity in the larger cities of 
our country. And much, we may fear, has been said in misjudgment 
and injustice, and in detriment to the growth and character of our 
more populous towns. Some men, perhaps sincere and enthusiastic 
in their own way, have excited themselves in hurling out the most 
alarming representations in regard to the present dangers and advance- 
ments of immorality. And our cities have received the greatest share 
of these unfavorable accounts. I shall not deny the existance of crime, 
nor the neccessity of earnestness in warning against its encroachments. 
A multidude of vices are spread widely around us. And let us not be 
deceived in regard to their lurking evils and allurements, for danger 
meets us whenever we walk unguarded by watchfulness and wisdom. 
The city may have its peculiar dangers and temptations. This must 
be so, from the nature of the circumstances. Wherever a mass of 



6 



AGGREGATE OF CRIME 



people, differing in character and culture, becomes congregated, we 
find every species of association. The immoral will naturally unite 
in close and formidable conclave to carry out their worst purposes and 
passions. The city draws together all the most forbidding elements 
of society, that we may see and know them as they are. In this view 
there is something, perhaps, in paliation of the spread of evil generally. 
Let vice, in its worst features, become gathered into our larger towns 
and cities, and let us see it as it is in all its associated deformity and 
power, and we can reach it better, and better arrest its secret ravages, 
than as though it diffused itself in disguise alike throughout the coun- 
try. Were immortality not to be found in an associated form in our 
cities, this fact would afford but little evidence that it did not flourish 
in other forms and disguises scattered in community. It might exist 
in a thousand secret ways, and diffuse itself with a more deadly in- 
fluence, like the pestilence. What section of our country, however 
humble, or rural, or retired, has been entirely free from the ravages 
of crime? The little village that lays embowered amid the beauties 
and grandeur of Nature, the quiet home that reposes away from the 
exciting city, and the peaceful family, have been invaded by the des- 
troying blight and blast. The virtue that is unsafe amid the open 
scenes of city temptation, may be equally unsafe amid the temptations 
which sometimes appear in the quietest scenes of a rural residence. 
There the temptations may be isolated, and may come in more secret, 
alluring disguises; and virtue, unguarded and unsuspecting, may be 
but little prepared to resist the evil. In the city, the allurements are 
more open, undisguised and numerous, and the evils, and the dan- 
gers are more palpable and appalling. The vicious become or- 
ganized into a body, and the young may see the need of perpetual 
vigilance against surrounding allurements. The places of infamy, of 
intemperance, of vicious amusement are set apart, and are branded 
by public sentiment. And these places bear upon their walls a pro- 
scription that speaks with warning to every one who draws near. The 
glaring lights, the low cellars and saloons, the gilded halls that reveal 
wild faces and voluptuous forms, the glittering bar and the chinking 
glasses, the half-drawn and dimning curtains, the squalled streets, the 
burning and restless eyes, the reeling forms, the specious song and 
speech, and the opening dens, — are all signs and signals that hang out 
like warning beacons in the city life. 

I repeat, it is better that temptation and vice should become asso- 
ciated in a mass, known and guarded against, than become secretly 
scattered abroad in alluring disguises, When the retreat of a vicious 



AGGREGATE OF CBIU1 



7 



gang is discovered, the evil can become reached and routed in the 
most effectual manner. The enormity is seen, and the public moral 
sentiment is aroused to measures of remedial action. Let immorality, 
or gambling, or drunkenness be found rioting in wide, open depra- 
vity in some infamous den of the great town, and what is the usual 
result? In some instances, I know that community, or the body in 
civil power, may wink at the unblushing iniquity, but not often. The 
public is warned of danger, the young and old; and virtuous horror is 
awakened. A holy sentiment is created in contrast, in condemnation, 
in abhorrence of such guilt. The leagued devotees of iniquity are ex- 
posed or scattered. Or if the power of evil is not broken down, it is 
circumscribed. Its limits are narrowed, and its victims are driven in- 
to a closer conclave of darkness and degradation. The pestilence is 
not cast abroad, with its contagious destruction to cause the lingering, 
moral death of additional multitudes, but works with a rapid, with a*n 
appalling ravage upon those who have already fallen below temporal 
hope, and upon those who have been driven into deeper dens of infa- 
my and ruin. Awful indeed is the sacrifice, yet better this, than the 
lingering sacrifice of thousands more that might fall without this awful 
immolation of virtue. 

The fact that city vice becomes more palpable and organized in 
certain forms and localities, makes it appear more formidable and ex- 
tensive than the vice of small villages, and of thinly populated coun- 
try places. Statistical accounts, perhaps, might show that cities, in 
proportion to the number of inhabitants, are not much worse than 
country neighborhoods and villages. There is some difference, it may 
be true, yet the difference is not as great as many honest alarmists 
would have us believe. 

Yet, allowing that our cities contain a disproportioned amount of 
vice and danger, there are other, and even redeeming considerations 
to be kept in mind. If the city puts forth more allurements to evil 
than the country, it also puts forth more means for the promotion of 
good. Virtue and truth are tried and trained in the school of a crowd- 
ed life. It is a school of danger to the young and the inexperienced, 
we confess, yet through such a school we must pass in life, if our in- 
tegrity is even proved strong and triumphant in resistance. In our 
large towns, the organizations and instrumentalities of education, of 
intelligence, of reform, of enterprise, of morality and religion, are 
brought to the highest state of activity and usefulness, and may 
exert a redeeming influence over surrounding evils. Schools, 
Churches, Lyceums and Societies are at work with all their agencies 



3 



AGGREGATE OF CRIME 



for good, in the protection of virtue, in the advancement of intelli- 
gence, and in the upbuilding of a true moral and religious sentiment. 
While men are perpetually preaching upon the dangers of a city life, 
they would do well, occasionally, to remember its safeguards, and to 
call attention to its institutions and advantages for the culture of the 
heart, the conscience, and the intellect, and for the general good of the 
race. 

That vice in the aggregate is on an increase in our cities, and es- 
pecially in our manufacturing cities, is somewhat questionable. Some 
men, and particularly those of a young and eratic character, seem to 
belabor us of the present generation, as though we were the most de- 
generate mass of mortals ever living, and as though immorality was 
something that had just appeared for the first time in our world. 
They seem to forget the hundred aations and empires of the past, long 
since overwhelmed with crimes and enormities that strike the present 
generation with dread and horror. They would seem to have us be- 
lieve that Rome, Babylon and Athens were holy cities, compared with 
our modern New York, Boston and Lowell. But these alarmists who 
would have us think that America is unparalleled in iniquity, and is fast 
retrograding to ruin, would improve their judgments, perhaps, by re- 
membering a few facts and statistics. The means of intelligence are 
now such, that every criminal act is easily made known and circulated 
over the entire country. No overt wrong or guilt can remain con- 
cealed, or confined to the knowledge of a few, but on the wings of 
steam and lightening is soon sent abroad, and is read over and over 
again in a thousand newspapers. And it may be regarded as evidence 
of an improved state of society, that every crime and immorality is 
now noticed, and excites a lively attention. Among a degraded peo- 
ple, guilt becomes so common and familiar, that no peculiar interest 
is created even by the most heinous deeds. But this is not the state 
of public sentiment in our towns and cities. Every fall from virtue, 
every outrage upon order and morality, every overt act of crime, 
creates a general exitement, and awakens a spirit of sympathy, of in* 
dignation, of astonishment, as though such things were of uncommon 
occurrence, and out of the usual course. "We take the fact for grant- 
ed, that virtue in general predominates over vice, and hence, when 
open wickedness appears, we are startled and pained, and notice it 
with peculiar sensitiveneness. And here we may find evidence of an 
elevated moral tone reigning throughout community. If statistical 
facts are consulted, instead of finding society on the retrograde and im- 
morality increasing, a more hopeful prospect will be presented in be- 



AGGREGATE OF CRIME 



9 



half of the masses. The influx of a foreign population may, in some 
of our cities, add a temporary increase to pauperism, depravity and 
wretchedness; but American society as a whole, may be regarded in 
a state of advancement. The accounts from our jails, poor-houses, 
penitentiaries, prisons and courts, during the last ten years, will pre- 
sent us facts of the most encouraging character. 

What I have said thus far, in endeavoring to correct some one-sided 
impressions, respecting our larger towns and cities, may apply to 
Lowell. We are not aware that manufacturing employments should 
be considered as derogatory to the character of any people. Industry 
and art are the life of morality and intelligence. And where these are 
organized under the most judicious moral regulations, as in Lowell 
and in many other manufacturing cities, we may believe that there are 
means at work calculated to elevate the character of the masses. And 
the Rev. Mr. Miles* "Lowell as it was and as it is" — a book, bearing 
the marks of great labor and accuracy, on this point, affords abundant 
evidence in honorable vindication of our own city. We may thank 
the author for the justice he has done to all parties; and while on this 
subject, I may freely avail myself of the statistical facts and state- 
ments of his book. 

I shall not pretend here to say that all the manufacturing regulations 
in regard to wages and the hours of labor are what they should be; 
but 1 pass this, at present, to speak of the character which our city 
sustains in connection with its industrial interests, and also, to speak 
of the character of metropolitan population in general. 

I repeat, that Mr. Miles' book has done justice, and breathes a libe- 
ral, unprejudiced spirit, and a spirit commendable for its confidence in 
human nature. And here we might wish that this spirit had been im- 
bibed by a young gentleman, who has recently appeared as a resident 
clergyman, and more recently still, as an author, in our midst. He 
presents himself to the public, in a volume, entitled "Lectures to Young 
Ladies, on Subjects of practical Importance. By Rev. Daniel C. Eddy, 
Lowell, Mass." Adopting as the motto of his title page, the words of 
Solomon — " Who can find a virtuous woman?" He appears to judge 
now of woman, of society in general, and of Lowell in particular, by 
the low standard of morality adopted in the times of Solomon, near- 
ly three thousand years since. The author speaks as though his age 
and experience warranted him in rating the virtue of the present day 
far beneath the past. We are willing to admit that his book is prin- 
ted and bound in a manner creditable to the publisher, who allows 
his name to be used; but we fear that no amount of excellent typo- 



10 AGGREGATE OF CRIME 

graphy, or gilding, or binding can conceal its internal defects. It has 
already elicited some severe criticism from several presses; and if the 
author was ambitious of notoriety, he may regard himself peculiarly 
honored. In his preface, (p. 8, 9,) he tells us that 'no apology is 
made' or 'needed' for the defects of his book. He possesses such a 
self-complacent idolatry for it, that he is prepared to face the public 
with defiance, and denounce that man c a base slave to popular opin- 
ion, who would apologise for presenting a work of this character. 1 
Perhaps, however, the author may be more confident on this point, 
than either the public at large, or many even of his own friends, who 
are full as wise as himself. If this book is to be the last, and the only 
one he designs to publish, it will fully prepare the community to need 
no more from the same source. We may allow that it contains some 
things of an unexceptionable character; and we might become sur- 
prised in not being able to find as many good things in almost any 
other book of two hundred and fifty-two pages. We have nothing to 
say in regard to the author's motives in presenting us this work, —it 
is our business to deal with it as it is. We have no idle object in no- 
ticing it, neither do we expect that many eminent judges will consider 
it as demanding much notice in a community of cultivated taste and 
intelligence. And our opinion of the public mind does not lead us to 
believe that the book will become extensively read or circulated. Yet 
it may pass into the hands of some, with whom it will have an influ- 
ence in forming wrong impressions in regard to city life and charac- 
ter. And the picture he gives of metropolitan population is so dark, 
that we are unwilling to allow it to go abroad without our honest dis- 
clamation. We regret that our author gains for himself but little hon- 
or in this work, yet we are unprepared to bear the dishonor which he 
reflects upon our communities, and especially upon female character. 
In the preface, (p. 9, 10,) we are modestly informed that these lec- 
tures 'were delivered in a, female community — to a congregation main- 
ly composed of females — by a minister, whose church at the time, em- 
braced more than seven hundred female members {!) — and in a city, 
where all the vices peculiar to females are found in rank profusion^ 
We are told (p. 222,) 'that hundreds of virtuous females coming to 
our city are ruined every year;' — that (p.l86>) 'our streets, neighbor- 
ing roads, churches, and places of public resort are thronged with 
reckless and profane Sabbath-breakers; — that the most profligate wo. 
men (p. 174,) are found in our shops, stores, mills, houses, — every- 
where'— and that everything around us is echoing with the 'hellish 
music' of profanity. And these are among some of the milder repre- 



AGGREGATE OF CRIME 



11 



sentations sent abroad concerning Lowell and our cities at large. And 
shall we pass over all this wholesale defamation in silence, because 
it comes from a clerical source ? No, we may utter our calm and ear- 
nest protest against that spirit which seems to delight in preying, 
with nothing but alarm and detraction, upon the slandered reputation 
of society and our race. 

To this end, with other collateral objects in view, I design this 
brief series of lectures on city life and character, and in notice of Mr. 
Eddy's book. And, in closing here with a single thought, let each of 
us remember the responsibility we bear in our respective allotments — 
that we are not only to decide our own personal good, but to contribute 
our influence towards the character of surrounding community, and 
in calling down the peace and prosperity of God upon our country. 



II. 



EXAGGERATIONS OF EVIL. 

Num. 13: 82, 33. — " And they brought up an evil report of the land 
which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land 
through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the 
inhabitants thereof ; and all the people that we saio in it are men of 
a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which 
were of the giants ; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers ; 
and so we were in their sight." 

There are two popular modes of observation, and two classes of 
observers. One is ever magnifying the evil, and depreciating the 
good; while the other depreciates the evil, and magnifies the good. 
One is selfish and illiberal, judging everything narrowly and suspic- 
iously; while the other, judges with a broad and generous justice, that 
takes into view both sides and all conditions. One is a timid, 
shrinking spirit, that professes great boldness and discrimination of 
judgment, yet in reality is childishly weak, and easily frightened; 
while the other is truly heroic, and correct in judgment; and if it 
prates less, it is prepared to act with a nobler aim. One is loudly 
censorious, severe and alarming; while the other is more mild, impar- 
tial and composed. One sees everything distorted; always something 
horrific and appalling; — sees through an eye full of beams and motes; 
while the other sees all things measured and mirrored by the light of 
truth. 

There were two classes of men sent by Moses to survey the land of 
Canaan. And after a long exploration, they returned. One class 
brought back an alarming report of the land. They represented the 
country as ravenous and dangerous, devouring to all the inhabitants. 
They saw giants, and trembled as grasshoppers. They beheld won- 



EXAGGERATIONS OF EVIL* 



13 



derful and fearful things. They made out an account, bo terrific, 
that the congregation of Israel became dismayed, and murmured at 
the dreadful prospects before them. But the other class of men came 
up, and gave a report of the most flattering character. They pro- 
nounced the country of Canaan, "an exceeding good land," — "a land 
flowing with milk and honey," and offering all the facilities needful 
to the highest and happiest state of society. And then, those who 
had brought "up a slander upon the land," and an "evil report," 
were cast out, and perished, more miserably, even, than the worst 
they had imagined. 

No true philosophy will allow exaggeration on the side of evil. 
The eye that could see nothing but the spots in the sun, and close 
itself against the world of light around, would possess a range of vision 
too narrow for the broad views of the star-gemmed heavens. A mind 
of calm, collected powers, and of parts well balanced, will see the 
good and evil of life in their proper proportions, without exaggerating 
either. But a mind, wrapped in a conceited sanctity, a mind, nar- 
rowed down within the limits of a theory, depraving to humanity, a 
mind, without faith or philosophy, to reconcile existing evils, or re- 
cognise the prevailing good, will become mostly absorbed in contem- 
plating the worst features that appear upon the face of society. Hence, 
that class of men, who resemble the spies sent forward to survey the 
region of Canaan, are eloquent with evil reports, and with startling 
accounts, which alarm all who are as suspicious as themselves. Sel- 
dom seeing or searching for the best views of human life or nature, 
they are perpetually dwelling upon the most forboding, the most start- 
ling, the most aggravating, and are ever magnifying the darkest side 
of things, that they may take to themselves the praise of discovering 
more than others. They seem to go out among their fellowmen, in 
the character of moral scavengers, — in search only of the offal and 
filth, found in the drains and sewers of society. 

It requires but little labor of mind, and less moral perception, to 
abuse humanity, and suspect every man and woman of depravity. 
Men of vicious abandonment, of profanity, deficient in moral and in- 
tellectual culture, are peculiarly gifted in representing the whole world 
equally as bad as themselves, if not worse. We should give them 
but little credit for their dark suspicions, though prompted by self- 
criticism, or for their denunciation in such general terms of condem- 
nation. The pulpit or press that imitates them, merits but little 
praise for the poor compliment it pays humanity. It may appear 
heroic and fearless, for one to stand up face to face before us, and 



14 



EXAGGERATIONS OF EVIL 



callus all wholly corrupt and demon-like; yet this is no more than 
any man can do, who gets mad and exasperated with his fellow beings. 
The worst men can generally give us the worst opinions of our race. 
I am reminded, however, that these lectures call our attention mostly 
to the character of City Life. And here, let me not be understood as 
endeavoring to keep from view, the fact, that there are dangerous 
sins and allurements lurking around us. I would close my lips in 
silence, rather than understate in the least degree, the real magnitude 
of surrounding dangers. The young, and men and women of every 
age, may remember the need of perpetual watch over themselves, 
and of guard against the deceitful allurements of evil. Yet we would 
never exaggerate the sins and dangers of society. Do I hear it said, 
it is impossible to exaggerate them ? Is it then impossible to slander hu- 
man nature ? to represent it worse than it is ? to make false statements 
of the condition of society around us? "But," it maybe replied, 
"there is no danger in representing things too dark or alarming, — no 
danger in magnifying the moral corruption and ruin that pervades 
community." Let us see. Suppose you make the youth believe that 
the difficulties in the path of science are vastly greater, and more nu- 
merous than they really are. Suppose you tell him that the attain- 
ment of morality and religion is an almost impossible thing. All you 
gay in this discouraging strain, only weakens his resolution. You 
may tell him the truth, and nothing more is needed. Again, suppose 
you make the young man believe that his moral nature is wholly weak 
and corrupt; — that this weakness and corruption are universal; — that 
wherever he goes, he will find men and women wholly inclined to de- 
pravity; — that, on every hand, there is an overwhelming tide of ruin, 
sweeping thousands away with an irresistable flood; — and that escape 
from destruction, is a miracle next to impossibility? Of course, you 
destroy that young man's confidence in himself. He is made to be- 
lieve that the waywardness of his nature is almost uncontrolable, and 
he may easily give way. And in everybody around him, his confi- 
dence is destroyed. He becomes selfish and suspicious, and loses 
all faith in human virtue. He learns to look upon everything with 
an evil eye. He suspects every man and woman of either deceit, dis- 
honesty, or lust; and becomes himself deceitful, dishonest, and lustful. 
He takes each person he meets, to be either some satanic tempter in 
disguise, or a fit subject to become the victim of his own wickedness. 
Believing the majority around him to be wholly corrupt, he argues 
that it is useless for him to make any effort to be otherwise— any at- 
tempt to stand alone in virtue. He must float on with the popular 



EXAGGERATIONS OF EVIL 



15 



currents The tide of evil, so he thinks, is too mighty and sweeping 
for resistance. In his own weakened confidence, he sees surrounding 
temptations, vast, appalling, overpowering,— and he falls. The besom 
of destruction sweeps by him and around him, and he is dashed away. 
O, the wrecks thus perishing, when lost from their last hold on self- 
reliance — when lost from all faith in virtue, in humanity and God I 
Young man, young woman! beware of that depraving scepticism 
which weakens the moral power of your own souls, which doubts the 
existence of virtue, which magnifies evil into an overwhelming, an 
overpowering flood, and which slanders society with the charge of 
deep and general corruption. 

This severe and unjust judgment appears on almost every page of 
the book to which we have alluded. Our city, and cities of a similar 
character, are represented as modern Sodoms and Gomorrahs, with 
only here and there a pleading Abram, or a solitary Lot. Although 
the operative classes are seldom expressly mentioned, yet they are 
plainly alluded to in many of the severest animadversions. I have 
already referred to some of the opinions which Mr. Eddy advances- 
in respect to the character of our population. I design now to proceed 
with further quotations and reflections. And I would have it remem- 
bered that I take up this book with no personal sentiments against the 
author, and with no desire to appear in the light of a hypercritical re- 
viewer, seeking only for defects, or an occasion for public controversy* 
I do it as an act of justice to a community which sustains a character 
for morality, intelligence, and respectability, deserving a better repre- 
sentation than this book gives. Not that the book will be extensively 
read or circulated, as stated before, or that it will be generally regard- 
ed as calling for much criticism. Yet, as it seems to represent a class- 
of writers and speakers who are constantly decrying human nature, and 
discovering nothing but corruption everywhere, we may use it as a 
sort of text book for occasional reference. 

Speaking of the prevalence of wicked pleasures, Mr. Eddy says, 
(p. 16,) "Especially is this the casein the city in which we live. Our 
dwellings are crowded, our streets are thronged, our churches are 
filled with the devoted worshippers of this world. 3 ' If this is but a 
rhetorical flourish, it may pass with some degree of allowance. But 
if, by "the devoted worshippers of this world," those, and those only, 
are meant, who are wholly abandoned to vicious amusements, our city 
must be in a deplorable condition, and our churches still worse; for if 
they are filled with a reckless, pleasure-seeking throng, no room 
can be left for moral and religious members. To confirm what 



I 

16 EXAGGERATIONS OF EVIL 

he has said of the sacrilegious character of our citizens, the author 
asks, (p. 17,) "Why are the churches of our city converted into altars, 
where the innocence of youth and the vigor of manhood may fall an 
easy sacrifice ?" And in a note, he alludes to the sale of the church 
built by the 2nd Baptist Society, to the Roman Catholics; and also 
to the conversion of the Free Will Baptist Church on Merrimack St., 
into a Museum. In regard to the latter, Mr. Eddy adds, Ck It was con- 
verted into a Theatre— its spire demolished—its worshippers driven out, 
and the groans of wretchedness, and the mimic cries of despair are 
substituted for the songs of praise and the exhibitions of the truth of 
God." Now, much as we may regret the loss of our Baptist friends, 
we are unwilling that the impression should go abroad, that they 
have been robbed, or wronged, or "driven out" by the public wicked- 
ness and injustice of our city. We trust that no injustice or op- 
pression has been tolerated against them, though they were unfortu- 
nate in their business transactions. But would some toiling operatives 
speak, perhaps, they might tell us tales of losses and blighted hopes, 
and wasted earnings, that would silence the feigned whimperings 
of our author, and plant upon his cheek the burning blush of shame.* 
To show in what estimate this book holds the natural virtues and 
affections of the female heart, we may quote: (p. 18 & on,) "The 
most simple act of an unconverted woman, is covered with the dark 
pall of guilt. She rises in the morning and retires to rest at night, a 
rebellious sinner. She eats, drinks, walks and sleeps as a rebel against 
the holy government of God. — She may bind up the broken heart — 
she may pour consolation in the wounded soul — she may lift the head 
of the sick, and smooth the pillow of the dying — she may watch over 
the couch of pain, and spread flowers over and around the tomb of 
the dead; and in all these ways, she may do good to others. — Let your 
nights be spent in watching, and days in labor; crowd into every hour 
of your life some act of kindness to a fellow creature, and the one sin- 
gle fact, that you love not God and his Son Jesus Christ, will coun- 
terbalance the whole, and prove to all holy minds, that you are dead 
while you live. — Your influence in one single year of impenitence is 

*The building to which allusion is here made, was erected by a 
Joint Stock Company, principally under the management of the pas- 
tor of the society. Many operatives were persuaded to take shares, 
and to place all their earnings for years, into the hands of the mana- 
gers; and in the end, they lost their all; and some were left blighted 
and destitute. The author is not prepared to offer an opinion in re- 
gard to whether there was any culpability in the chief management of 
the corporation or not, but these are the simple facts in the case. 



EXAGGERATIONS OF' E V I I 



17 



doing more to ruin souls, to pave eternity with tortures, to undermine 
the government of God, and to chill the hearts of christian benevolence, 
than a whole life, should it continue a hundred years, would counter- 
balance." Yet, in the next moment after denouncing all these labors 
of sympathy and love, the author suddenly adds, (p. 22) "Far, very 
far be it from me, or my present purpose, to discourage the efforts of 
those who are laboring to benefit our race — to assuage its griefs, and 
mitigate its anguish." And, yet, the preacher has just said that the 
"influence" of those who were wholly engaged in just such deeds of 
mercy, 'would ruin souls, pave eternity with tortures, undermine the 
government of God, and chill the hearts of christian benevolence !' 
But the secret of our author's depreciation of native goodness, is found 
in the fact, that it proceeds not from a nominal profession of his relig- 
ion, his notions of God; proceeds not from those who are formally con- 
verted and indoctrinated and membershipped as he would have them. 
Because men and women are not outwardly pious after his fashion, he 
represents them as basely corrupt, impenitent, at war with God, 
though their lives are spent in deeds of duty and love. The intelligent 
young woman, of amiable, virtuous and benevolent character, who has 
never been suspected of any wrong, who is loved for many excellen- 
cies of both heart and mind, whose example has been one of undevia- 
ting rectitude, because she has never come forward to do the penance 
of a rigid church discipline, is set down as infamous in wickedness. 
No marvel, adopting this rule of judgment, that the masses of society 
have incurred the anathemas of Mr. Eddy. But he needs yet to 
learn that all righteousness and religion are not confined to a mere form 
or profession. The warmest and the holiest hearts may beat in unos- 
tentatious silence. Many an angel of benevolence and virtue 
walks in our midst, visiting the sick and poor, without ever claiming 
a relation in the popular church. God is loved and served most in 
deeds of silent love; and he or she who loves humanity most, is most 
in the way of loftiest duty. I cannot believe that the multitudes in 
our midst are wholly, or mostly lost to this native love of goodness. 
Yet our author, in addressing his female hearers, (p. 28,) says, 
" Some are here to-day, who have never performed one holy act in 
all their lives !" What a wretched compliment to his audience. Did 
not Mr. Eddy regard it a 'holy act' for these young women to come 
and hear him? If not, it must have been an 'imholy act' on their 
part, to sit and hear themselves slandered thus. I never have found 
a human being so utterly depraved as our author represents some of 
his congregation ; I do not believe God ever made such a being. 



EXAGGERATIONS OF EVIL 



But he adds, (p. 29,) "They have amiable characters which the de- 
luded crowd around them admire." Is it a delusion to admire "ami- 
able characters?" If it is, let us have more of such delusion. But the 
author tells us that these "amiable characters" are wholly iniquitous. 
He compares them with a 'corpse of unutterable loathsomeness. ' 
"When flies the shuttle; when speeds the wheel: when sweet music 
charms; when the dance grows gay; when life is most buoyant, and 
hope the brightest; then, then remember that you are dead while you 
live. As you rise in the morning, and perform the duties of the toilet, 
remember that you are decorating a living corpse." 

The impression, in regard to the streets of our cities, given by this 
book, is one which no respectable citizen can tolerate, (p. 68 & on) 
"Many persons * *■ prefer to rove the streets of the crowded city 3 
catching fragments of the conversations of the abandoned and vile, 
and tainting their hearts with the abominable increase of licentious 
thoughts and actions. — Clusters of young people may be seen moving 
backward and forw ard, gazing listlessly into the windows of the light- 
ed stores, growing boisterous with mirth, and proving a serious hinder- 
ance to well disposed people, who are obliged, by the various duties of 
life, to be passing and repassing at that hour." We suppose from 
this, that our author would have all who walk out, look as serious as 
possible, and never smile and laugh. Perhaps he w 7 ould have the 
shop-keepers darken their windows, and never expose their goods for 
sale, since it is probable that he never needs to pause for a glance at 
the brilliant display. And pray, how are we to decide who the "well 
disposed people" are, so that every body else shall be banished from 
the streets, and not 'hinder' those respectable "people" who claim all 
the sidewalks to themselves ? But further, "The majority of those 
who compose these street regiments are females. — I venture the as- 
sertion, that no well disposed, virtuous, respectable young lady, will 
be seen, evening after evening, parading the public streets of our city, 
amid the throngs which infest them." Then, of course, the mass of 
young women, who chance to find occasion for being out during an 
evening, are neither 'well disposed, virtuous, nor respectable ; 5 for 
we have just learned that the "majority of these street regiments," to 
repeat the tasty figure, "are females." Women of Lowell! do not 
your faces crimson with indignation at such slander as this? But fur- 
ther; "The young woman who can take pleasure in wandering through 
our public highways, amid the smoke of cigars, oaths and blasphemies 
— low jests and licentious ribaldry — listening to the conversations 
which are heard in them— associating with such companions as the 



EXAGGERATIONS OF EVIL 



19 



utreet affords — congregating on corners, with the vile, has earned that 
character, which, for the want of a better and more appropriate term 
with which to designate a young lady, I denominate a "female, loafer." 
— "The streets of our cities are Satan's highways to the theatre — to 
the gambling saloon — to the drunken debauch — to the infernal brothel, 
and the woman who loves to roam through them, and finds pleasure 
in the obscenity and degradation there heard and seen, has lost a vir- 
tuous heart, and is but one step from shame and destruction." If 
this is the character which our streets sustain, better that our public 
authorities, if we are civil enough to have any, close them up without 
delay. If our author hears and sees in our midst all that he describes, 
he hears more than men of ordinary ears and eyes. What might be 
heard and seen, should we go out on purpose to pick up nothing but 
corruption, to creep into low cellars and dark alleys, to stand and lis- 
ten on the corners of the street with ears and eyes open, with mean 
suspicions only, we are unprepared to stale; for we suppose that few 
people go out with designs of so questionable a character, unless 
their minds are full of evil thoughts. That our streets are lively with 
gaiety, we admit, and there is a liability to abuse the privileges of an 
evening walk or errand. But gaiety and laughter and lively conver- 
sation are not always indicative of utter depravity. And after the 
toil and confinement of a long day, it would be hard to deny the young 
an innocent liberty in the open air. But let our streets become bran- 
ded as "highways of Satan," and every female who walks them after 
sun-set must be branded as infamous, and must suppose herself sur- 
rounded by throngs of abandoned men and women. We may allow 
that there are evils here, and sometimes dangers, and we should never 
advise the young to any reckless exposure. I r et I shall be warranted in 
saying that more than nine tenths of the females who pass our streets 
in the evening, are above suspicion or danger; and more than nine 
tenths of the males would suffer no lady to be insulted, without de- 
fending and protecting her. 

Yet our clerical observer represents the society of Lowell as pecu- 
liarly corrupt and degraded. He sends abroad the alarming statements, 
already quoted, that "hundreds of virtuous females who come to our 
city every year, will become corrupted and broken down." The real 
facts of the case, we confess, are alarming enough, and may send out 
their warning notes; but we are unwilling to allow that Lowell is 
wholly abandoned. "Hundreds every year!" How many hundreds 
in our city, think you, are annually lost and ruined? To make our 
author's statement true, we must admit, that there are two hundred, 



'20 



EXAGGERATIONS OF EVIL 



at least, who are yearly sacrificed and sold to shame. Now let us 
take the statistics found in Mr. Miles' "Lowell as it was and as it is," 
and compare. Mr. Miles says, (p 132) "A more strictly and univer- 
sally temperate class of persons cannot be found, than the nine thou- 
sand operatives of this city; and the fact is as well known to all others 
living here, (excepting Mr. Eddy, of course,) as it is of some honest 
pride among themselves. In relation to other immoralities, it may be 
stated, that the suspicion of criminal conduct, association with suspec- 
ted persons, and general and habitual light behavior and conversation, 
are regarded as sufficient reasons for dismissions, and for which de- 
linquent operatives are discharged." The moral system adopted by 
the manufacturing interests of our city, is well known to be wisely de- 
signed to maintain a high character among the females, and to exclude 
all who are unworthy. From the statistics given by several of the 
oldest boarding house keepers, embracing a period of several years, 
only forty-six, out of six thousand, seven hundred and eighty-six op- 
eratives, were dismissed for improprieties. On the Appleton Corpo- 
ration, during fourteen years, only two dismissions are reported, out 
of one hundred and ninety-one operatives constantly employed. Mr. 
Aiken, Agent for the Lawrence Corporation, reports six discharges 
from one of the mills during ten years, and adds, "I think it not im- 
probable that an equal number may have, for like reasons, been dis- 
charged from each of the other mills in the course of ten years past, 
though i cannot call to rememberance half that number." Mr. Phelps, 
an overseer on the Merrimack for more than nineteen years, reports, 
that out of the twelve hundred employed in that Corporation, not more 
than two or three a year have been dismissed, and adds, that "such 
cases have been more rare of late years than formerly." Mr. Hol- 
land, in the same Company, during seventeen years, says, "I have no 
knowledge of but six cases upon the Corporation." Mr. Well man, in 
the same place for eleven years, estimates the whole number of dis- 
charges on the Corporation during that time, to be twelve or fifteen, 
and adds, "I should think such cases less frequent now, than when I 
first came to Lowell, eleven years ago." All these reports tell a story 
vastly more creditable to our city, than the alarming exaggerations 
held forth in these "Lectures to Young Ladies." The author would 
have us believe that hundreds are annually flocking to our mills only 
to be destroyed by the surrounding machinery of iniquity. While, 
according to these statistics, allowing the worst, out of nine thousand 
operatives constantly employed,* we can reckon not more than one 



*The number of operatives now employed is at present somewhat less. 



EXAGGERATIONS O E EVIL 



21 



quarter of a hundred cases of absolute licentiousness and ruin per year. 
This is enough, God knows! and may startle the virtuous to activity 
and watchfulness in staying the ravages of destruction. Yet, let jus- 
tice be done; let us not rest under the odium of sweeping calumny. 
We should thank no man for sending out a report of our city like that 
which was given by the spies of Canaan, to frighten the people abroad 
from daring to enter our gates. Thank God! there is some virtue, 
some intelligence, some religion still left among the masses of our pop- 
ulation; the signs around us, instead of indicating the increase of dark- 
ness and crime, are speaking with an uplifted voice for humanit}^ and 
reform. 

My auditors, wherever we are found in the great field of life, let 
us feel that virtue alone is our safeguard. Lose not your confidence 
in this, and God will shelter you beneath his protecting arm. Be 
strong in the powers with which an Almighty Intelligence has endow- 
ed you, fearing nothing as you would fear the fall of your own virtue, 
and temptation shall become disarmed of its might and charm In each 
member of the great family around us, behold a soul made in the Infi- 
nite Image, a subject of redeeming Christianity, and an heir of immor- 
tal life. Behold man one in everlasting brotherhood, and God over 
all, blessed forevermore ! 



III. 



POWER OF SYMPATHY, EITHER WJTH VICE OR VIRTUE. 

Ezek. 13: 22. — Because with lies, ye have made the heart of the 
righteous sad — and strengthened, the hands of the wicked. 

Allusion was made to this class of persons in the preceding 1 lecture, 
and reference was had to the dangers of exaggerating evils. The 
more confidence we inspire in virtue, the more will men and women 
love it and practice it. We are beings of sympathy, and need all pos- 
sible influences of an elevated and hopeful character to encourage us 
in the way of moral rectitude. The wisest and best are not without 
the want of bright examples, and stimulating motives. They feel 
the common need of companionship, of warm sympathy, of animating 
incentives; and though nothing may wholly dishearten them, yet to 
know that they are not alone, but surrounded by a strong band of the 
virtuously devoted, will impart power and perseverance to all their 
holy aims. Make the purer and moraller classes of society think they 
are weak, and almost alone arnid a corrupt majority, and you lessen 
their strength and courage; you break down the better resolves of 
those who look to the example of the many to assist them in reforma- 
tion. In times cf religious, political, or reformatory interest, when 
the tide seems to be setting onward for good, with what enthusiasm 
are the masses up and awake. Thousands are aroused and changed at 
once, by the active encouragements around them. The masses move 
the easiest, either for good or evil, when they move together. What- 
ever becomes popular, takes, and carries away the multitude by a 
common contagious sympathy. And if truth, virtue, morality, relig- 
ion can be made to appear popular, in accordance with a calm reason, 
so much the better and more benificent will be the result. 

But suppose an opposite representation. Let the worst follies and 



POWER OP SYMPATHY, EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE. 23 



vices be regarded as popular and prevalent. Of course, the vicious 
are encouraged, and their hands made stronger. They argue 
that everybody is on their side, and bid those who falter at the begin- 
ning of temptation, to go along, and fall in with the multitude, and 
fear nothing; for nobody is strictly virtuous, and all are alike involved 
in corruption. I venture to suggest that this specious argument has 
demoralized and blighted more of the young, has accomplished more 
ruin than auy other one lie with which sin has ever oiled its false and 
venomous tongue. A man uses profane language; — you rebuke him 
for it. But he tells you that everybody does the same thing, some- 
times, — even the most accomplished gentlemen, and the pious, too. In 
trade, a man adopts some regular tricks of dishonesty; you expostu- 
late with him. But he excuses himself, by saying they are common 
tricks of the trade, in general practice, and without which, no profi- 
table business could be done. The young, the innocent, the unsus- 
pecting are tempted; at first, are shocked at the temptation. They re- 
coil, trembling and alarmed. But what is the seducing argument? 
They are told the world is full of forbidden pleasures, — that the masses 
of meu and women are secret sinners, — that these things are common, 
though often concealed, — and that everybody is guilty either in deed, 
thought or desire. What could be more certain to arm wickedness 
with popular power, investit with a popular charm, destroy confidence 
in all human virtue, and weaken that moral strength which is needed 
to resist temptation? Could we but hear all the tales of ruin which 
might be told of the fallen, how many would date the beginning of 
their downfall from that moment when they began to listen to the 
slander, that everybody was secretly corrupt, and waited only for an 
opportunity to sin! This 'slander* I say, for it is a slander. True it 
ma}^ be, that the knowledge of evil is almost universally prevalent, 
and but few may be exempt from occasional thoughts, passions, or 
even temptations. Yet one may know that evil is in society, and may 
have passing thoughts, without actual guilt. The scenes and asso- 
ciations of life are such, that many repulsive things are often thrust 
upon our attention; but the guilt consists in being carried away by the 
evil, in giving up to immoral desires, in permitting ourselves to be 
overpowered. 

We are not prepared to allow that the majority of our communities 
are thus abandoned. Go through our city from house to house, and 
you will find virtuous mothers and fathers, neighbors and citizens, 
husbands and wives, sons and daughters, living in peace, happiness, 
and respectability. You will find this class vastly more numerous 



U .M l'OWER OF SYMPATHY, EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE 

than even those who are suspected of immoralities by liberal judges 
of character. Especially may we say this with reference to the female 
population. Mr. Eddy, in adopting the out-of-time-and-place motto 
of his book, asks, "Who can find a virtuous woman?" as though, ac- 
cording to his observation and intercourse, women of such a character 
were rarely if ever found. But ask any lady of respectable experience 
— say some boarding house keeper in our own city, — and she will tell 
you that she can find ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, or more, virtuous 
ones, where she can find one otherwise. 

In speaking of the 'malicious slanderer,' our author says, "she be- 
lieves no good of any one." It may be conjectured herefrom the manner 
in which he himself writes, that this is a transcript of an article in his 
own creed. In addressing his hearers on "Temptations to immorality 
unmasked," he says, (p. 163) '1 shall not of course turn your minds 
to any disgusting detail of crime, or lead you to a contemplation of 
any scenes of shame and guilt." Yet, in the same lecture, he attempts 
to 'detail' the blackest and most loathsome thoughts that infest a cor- 
rupt heart. He describes books which inflame the worst passions; — 
he delineates the woman of shame in the most facinating attractions, 
and opens to the unsuspecting and innocent, the abhorrent secrets of 
profligate men. He presents scenes of guilt and shame, too 'disgust- 
ing' for recital, and too highly colored for any profitable contempla- 
tion. This is one of the great glaring defects of the book. It ren- 
ders the young too familiar with evil. A long time since, Pope gave 
us a true idea : 

"Vice is a monster of so frightful me in, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

The young are liable to become inflamed by glowing and vivid de- 
scriptions of certain kinds of iniquity; a dangerous curiosity is excited, 
often leading to fearful experiments. In portraying sin and its dan- 
gers, everything depends upon the manner, the style, the language, 
the imagery; and ail the.se appear in the book before us, in the 
most objectionable light. The author is scathing in his denunciations 
against novels of the flashy species, so abundant in our day; yet his 
book abounds in the very style of thought and language which he so 
heartily condemns. 1 should blush more to quote some of his high 
wrought sentences, than 1 should to quote some of the worst para- 
graphs which some of the popular novelists of the day ever wrote. 
I jjoia with every honest and discriminate mind in execrating the great 



POWER OF SYMPATHY, EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE 



as 



mas3 of cheap fictitious trash, with which our country is flooded;— and 
for the same reason, 1 reprobate works of the same character, though 
emanating from the pulpit. The liberal critic, however, will evince 
some discrimination in his strictures upon fictitious literature. But 
this book is indiscriminate. We may take a single example, (p. 126) 
"The man who can read the writings of Bulwer, Dickens, Sands,, Du- 
mas, Eugene Sue, and take pleasure therein, must be destitute of a 
pure heart." Now, I would not wish to recommend the reading of 
authors like these ; but to admit that all who have read them must be 
regarded as corrupt at heart, is admitting a very bad opinion of the 
whole literary world. Taking Dickens alone, we may venture the 
remark, that he has been read with 'pleasure,' by three fourths of the 
most cultivated men and women in England and America. Even Mr. 
Eddy himself, might take some valuable lessons from him, in purity 
of style, in chastity of thought, in love and charity towards human 
nature. 

But I pass further to illustrate the danger of overdrawing pictures 
of evil. After describing the different characters of profligate men, 
the lecturer continues, (p. 176) "You will meet them at almost every 
turn you take, and unless you spurn them from you, they will accom- 
plish your ruin. Probably you may think this caution entirely un- 
necessary — you all feel that you are safe, and perhaps think that such 
advice had better be withheld. But remember that hundreds as vir- 
tuous as yourselves, — surrounded by as many friends — linked to kind 
hearts by as many fond associations, — as strong and steadfast in pur- 
pose, have been ruined, and their characters blasted. Sneer not at 
the advice now given in kindness, for to-morrow, your blasted char- 
acter may stand as a monument of the truth of my assertion." We 
must admit that timely warning and counsel are needed to guard us 
against the illusions of evil. But when these are given, they should 
be given with care, and some confidence. In this extract, however, 
woman is advised to an indiscriminate suspicion; to distrust herself, 
and every man she meets. She is assured that her own virtue is 
weak, precarious, and may be easily overcome. Whom is Mr. Eddy 
addressing? The ladies of his own congregation! And has he no 
more confidence in their strength of character, their integrity in vir- 
tue, than to suppose it easy for the wisest, the purest, the best of 
them to fall? Thank God! the mass of chaste and intelligent women 
have a better opinion of themselves than this. They have more con- 
fidence in their virtue, than to believe it possible for them to be easily 



*D 



2fl POW£* OF SYMPATHY, EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE 

sacrificed to voluntary shame through the wiles of the graceless prof- 
ligate ! And would their modesty permit them to speak, they would 
seal the lips of the slanderer who dares whisper a suspicion of their 
unchastity. The old virtue, which, in the times of Rome and Athens, 
would suffer martyrdom sooner than dishonor, still lives fresh and 
vigorous in the bosom of a Christian womanhood; and woe to the 
man or the woman whose faith in that virtue is lost! Let our wives, 
our sisters — your daughters loose their confidenc in the strength of 
their own integrity, and [their fall in the hour of fierce temptation is 
next to inevitable. Young man, tell your sister that she would be an 
easy conquest for the libertine; almost an unresisting victim to illicit 
pleasures; father, tell your daughter this.- — and what have you done? 
You have destroyed her faith in her own power of resistance; and 
when the time of trial comes, if it come at all, she remembers your 
words, and they paralize her powers. O, woman, beware of that des- 
tructive counsel which disarms virtue of its endurance and integrity 
in the hour of temptation ! 

Our lecturer intimates that the loveliest, the highest, the most intelli- 
gent females are as liable to fall as those of an opposite character. If 
this be true, then there is no worth, no power, no superiority, no advan- 
tage in a cultivated mind or morality. A virtue that cannot, or will 
not resist vice, is worthless; yet such is the only virtue which this 
bock attributes to human nature. Facts gathered from actual obser- 
vation must convince us, that most of those who become the easiest 
victims of guilt, are from among the friendless, the unprotected, the 
ignorant, the unfortunate, and the uncultivated classes of society. 
Some, I admit, may fall from the higher and the purer walks of life; 
but these are the exceptions, rather than the cases to justify a general 
rule. 

In speaking of criminal amusements, and their destructive effects, 
the preacher says, (p. 178) "Our city is full of them, and midnight 
would find me standing here if I should attempt to unfold the scenes 
which are constantly transpiring among us.*' This is another repre- 
sentation eminently calculated to create a general mistrust, and to un- 
dermine the confidence of the uninformed. Let it be rumored abroad 
that Lowell is filled with places of resort for the vicious and aban-* 
doned, and all the profligate of the land would flock to our city, and 
the virtuous would flee from our gates like Lot from burning Sodom. 
I know there are evils around us; fearful evilsj to the weak and the un- 
guarded; but let us not raise a false alarm to overwhelm the virtuous 
m4 the young with disarming consternation, 



>OWER OF SYMPATHF, EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE 87 

The profane character which Mr. Eddy attributes to our population* 
presents one of the most remarkable features of his book. (p. 83 & on) 
"Go out into our public streets, — wander up and down our crowded 
thoroughfares — listen to the language which comes leaping like the 
fangs of serpents from a thousand tainted lips, and if in your soul one 
shade of virtue is left, your heart will quail within you. You will 
hear the tongue of detraction pour out its corrupted stream of moulten 
lava — you will hear the most disgusting, low, vulgar 3 abusive, fiendish, 
outbursts of the wormwood and gall of human depravity— you will 
hear the name of Jesus— pronounced with scorn, contempt, and in- 
sult — you will hear that God who stands with bolts of thunder in his 
hands, and who by a word could blast the wretches at his feet,— you 
will hear the name of that God defiled — his vengeance braved — his 
justice and judgment scorned!" Why, my hearers, one might judge 
from this account, that our city was made up of a multitudinous gang 
of swearing pirates and fiends — that Lowell was equal to the hell des* 
cribed by Pollock, resounding 

'With curses loud, and blasphemies that make 

The cheek of darkness pale. 3 
And yet we may seldom hear profanity more shocking, or cursing 
more dreadful and dishonorable to the Divine Being, than Mr. Eddy 
uses in the same paragraph, when he talks of a. ( God armed with 
thunder-bolts to blast the wretches at his feet. 1 It is just this kind of 
preaching that teaches men to swear, and justifies them; — for if the 
Christian minister can curse and damn, and invoke infinite vengeance 
on his fellow-beings, bad men will do the same thing. But let us ask, 
where, and in what streets can we 'hear the most disgusting, low, 
vulgar, abusive, fiendish outbursts, 5 'leaping like the fangs of serpents, 
from a thousand tainted lips! 3 " Our public streets}" Central and 
Merrimack streets, of Lowell? Washington and Hanover streets, of 
Boston? Broadway and Bowery, of New York? Chestnut and Mar- 
ket streets, of Philadelphia? — Main street, of Buffalo, Rochester, 
Utica and Albany? 1 have walked through all these streets, and 
through most of the large cities in our Union, yet I have never fallen 
into any company quite bo profane and abandoned as that des<= 
cribed by the pastor of the first Baptist church in Lowell. W e hear 
enough profanity, it is true, and enough to shame the gentleman who 
swears upon his honor. We offer no apology or palliation for the in- 
Famous practice; yet we would never judge so harshly as to suppose 
that every man who dishonors himself by the occasional habit, is a 
Send, a hater of God> totally corrupt and an inveterate enemy of man 



28 POWER OF SYMPATHY j EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE 



and his Maker. Many often use profane language carelessly, without 
doing it from a heart wholly depraved and malignant. Yet shame, 
shame, even upon such; and there is a God who will not hold them 
guiltless ! 

But farther in regard to this vice, (p. 101 & on,) /'Among men we 
hear it everywhere. We seldom enter a store — a workshop, a coun- 
ting-house — anywhere, where a number of men are congregated, 
without hearing a volley of oaths. Our public streets are christened 
with curses, and did the pavements re-echo what they hear, they 
would utter forth blasphemy. — We hear so much, that we are accus- 
tomed to it, and it falls upon our ears without inspiring us with a 
thrill of terror, and we bear it as a matter of course. (In our last 
quotation, the author says, 'if you have one shade of virtue left, 3 r our 
hearts will quail within you, to hear such profanity;' but now he says, 
we can hear unmoved; which, of course, is as much as to say, that 
no shade of virtue is at last left!) " And I suppose," he concludes, 
"we shall continue to hear it, for some men will 'never give it up' — they 
will curse on — swear themselves through life, and amid curses and 
blasphemies, they will enter the presence of G od." Well, my hearers, 
this is poor encouragement, indeed, for men to think of ever trying to 
'give it up,' — if they are destined to a doom which will compel them 
to curse and blaspheme forever. How many swearers do you imagine, 
Mr. Eddy, can reform by holding out to them the prospect of being 
doomed to swear through all eternity! — But where are the 'shops, 
stores and counting-rooms,' which 'we can seldom enter' 'without 
hearing a volley of oaths'? I am not able to find many of such a 
character. I suspect that most moral and respectable men seldom do 
business in such establishments. If our business places bear such a 
reputation, better that all the old signs be taken down at once, and in- 
stead of misleading us by gilded letters, which read, "Dry Goods' 
Store," " Counting-Room.," &c, let the sign-boards read, "Swearing 
Room," "Cursing Establishment," &c. 

But after abating his wonder at the universal profanity of men, our 
author comes to speak of the 'swearing woman.' In speaking of the 
uselessness and folly of the habit among females, he adds, (p. 102) 
"It is," as one has expressed it, 'biting at the devil's naked hook,' 
and swallowing barb and all. But is she free from this vice? No. 
The walls of your shops — the roofs of your mills — the streets of your 
towns and cities, and even your houses are echoing with the hellish 
music of the swearing woman. Some who call themselves respecta- 
ble—who attend our churches — who are here to-day, are given to 



POWER OP SYMPATHY, EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE 29 



blasphemy." We should be sorry to believe all this. A profane wo- 
man is not common, and when found, she is usually found in the low- 
est condition of life, both morally and socially. If she is ever heard 
in our streets, it is not often, except in streets of a doubtful character. 
If her "hellish music" is loud enough to be echoed by the roofs of our 
mills, amid the deafening roar and clatter of machinery, she must be 
gifted with remarkable power of voice. Mr. Eddy ought to know, 
that according to the rule and custom adopted in the mills, no profane 
female is allowed to remain in any of our factories. If part of his con- 
gregation is made up of 'blasphemous 5 women, according to his own 
complimentary statement, it is hoped that he will reform them, or 
have them sent to some moral asylum; for we should dislike to have 
any congregation in our city bear a disreputable character, and we 
do not believe that many of the members of his church will allow 
themselves to bear such a character. 

But in regard to the sacrilegious repute of our population, (p. 188) 
"The Sabbath has become a day of amusement, recreation and dis- 
sipation. Its holy hours — are perverted and abused, — its solemn 
stillness is disturbed by shouts of merriment and groans of wretched- 
ness, and the voice of God is drowned in the gay laughter of men and 
women hastening to their pleasures. Our cities every Sabbath day 
present a most melancholly spectacle. From the highest circles in 
society, to the lowest, the command of the Almighty in regard to it is 
unheeded. — 1 tremble when I see, as each week rolls away, the thought- 
less multitude, spending hours which they ought to employ differently, 
in pleasure and debauchery." And again, the author says, (p. 198) 
"Look around you and see the streets thronged with Sabbath-breakers 
— the roads to distant towms and cities rilled with Sabbath-breakers, 
— the fields and groves filled with Sabbath-breakers, and even our 
temples of worship filled with thoughtless Sabbath-breakers! The 
claims of the Sabbath as a day of worship are almost entirely disre- 
garded — the noblest provisions for human good are stricken down, and 
the day devoted to unhallowed pursuits." This presents an extraor- 
dinary state of religious affairs in our midst. But let us turn to the 
opposite and the better side. I believe there are now over twenty 
churches in our city, well attended, and supported at an expense of 
over fifty thousand dollars per annum. And by whom ? By all classes 
of people. We may calculate that about one half, at least, of our 
population, are either habitual or occasional attendants on worship; 
and allowing that one half of the remainder are kept at home by sick- 
ness or poverty, we may set down only one quarter of our population 



SO 1POWER OP SYMPATHY, EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE 

as wholly indifferent to the claims of the Sabbath. Yet these "Lec- 
tures" inform us that Sabbath-breaking is next to universal in our 
'streets — roads — fields — groves — churches ;' that the 'day of worship 
is almost entirely disregarded', that 'amusement, recreation and dissi- 
pation' are the chief employments, — that worship is interrupted by 
«shouts' and 'groans,' and c gay laughter 5 — that the 'highest' and 'low- 
est' are 'wantonly profaning' 'the holy day,' and 'spending it in plea- 
sure and debauchery.' God save us from such a calamity, and such 
calumny! Why, if this account is true, it is a marvel that the peace- 
ful silence and attention that pervade this audience to-night, are not 
broken by some Sabbath-breaking rabble, clamoring around us, and 
threatening to demolish our temple of worship. 

What is the cause of our author's sweeping charges? I suspect 
that he regards all as Sabbath-breakers, who refuse to spend the day 
according to his notions of sanctity. It is possible for a man to judge 
from an illiberal spirit. Mr. Eddy would have everybody view the 
Sabbath as he does, or they must fall under his anathemas, and be- 
come branded as infamous. He makes no allowance for a honest 
difference of opinion. He might call you Sabbath-breakers, because 
you enter this church on a Sunday night, to hear for yourselves what 
he would tell you it was improper to hear, and he might warn you to 
keep away. He might call it Sabbath-breaking for you to attend 
church where you please, or to smile, or look cheerful, or read cer- 
tain books, or to walk out for pleasure, health, or meditation on Sun- 
day. He may call the mild and quiet Quaker a Sabbath desecrator. 
Hear his language; (p. 203 & on) "A man cannot be an habitual 
Sabbath-breaker, and be a moral man. — They are men whose charac- 
ters you would not wish to possess. There cannot be a good Sab- 
bath-breaker, any more than there can be a good rum-seller, or a good 
murderer, or a good adulterer. It requires a bad heart, — and that 
must be a bad man who does it. — They can hardly be trusted. You 
will regard them, (females) as the very ones whom you would expect 
to pilfer from your purse or trunk." The venerable Wm< Penn, and 
George Fox, and all the men and women who belong to the benevo- 
lent and respectable society of Friends, then, are to be branded as im- 
moral, thievish, and suspicious characters! It is well, doubtless, that 
there is a higher Judge than the author of "Lectures to Young Ladies." 

But he he continues, (p. 204) "I have a child at home, (he tells us 
this several times in the book) — a boy; — but I would rather go home 
from this service to see him die — aye, with these hands nail together 
Isis coffin— with these hands dig his little grave— with these arms bear 



POWER OF SYMPATHY, EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE SI 

his cold corpse to the tomb, than to see him grow up in life, intelligent, 
wealthy, courted and flattered, but an habitual violator of the Sabbath. 
In the one case, I should expect to meet him in glory, and see him 
changed from a dead infant, to a shining angel; but in the other case* 
I should only expect to be startled from my seat in heaven, (if 1 am 
so happy as to secure one,) by an infernal shriek, and know that it 
was the voice of my doomed child, as he plunged off upon his dismal 
passage. 55 Does not that father know that his child may grow up and 
become what he fears? I have heard of fathers and mothers, who, in 
the dread of such an awful doom, have destroyed their own children 
in infancy, lest the beloved ones should grow up in sin, and 'plunge 
off 5 at last with 'infernal shrieks 5 'upon the dismal passage 5 of an end- 
less hell. Let us not wonder, then, when we hear this language from 
Mr. Eddy. It is the language prompted by a dark, fearful theology, 
Would he sooner see that child cold and ghastly, than see it join the 
society of Friends ? Does he expect to see Wm. Penn, and George 
Fox, and all their followers 'plunge 5 down, howling to an everlasting 
night of damnation? God have mercy upon the soul that can think of 
this without shuddering ! 

The Sabbath, we may regard as a divinely sanctioned institution 
for the blessing of man ; and we would urge its claims by all the high- 
er interests of our being. Yet we may allow the conscientious Friend 
his opinion, without assuming the right to blast his name, or doom his 
soul; and we would not insist upon a Puritanical observance as the 
only test of Christian character. When we learn the criterion of our 
author, we cease to wonder that he finds so many Sabbath-breakers. 
Having spoken of the desecrations of the holy day in Europe, he con- 
tinues, (p, 197) "Too much is this the case with the female portion of 
the community in which we live. The idea of spending the Sabbath 
as a day of holy worship does not enter their minds, and . when the 
beautiful morning comes, they go out amid the blooming flowers, and 
singing birds, to seek for pleasure in its wanton desecration. — How 
many go out into the green fields, and pluck the flowers which bloom 
in beauty there, and never cast one thought to Him who planted those 
flowers, and sent His rain to water them. How many enter the grave- 
yard on the Sabbath, and wander about among the tombs, insulting 
the ashes of the dead, without thinking of Him who will soon call 
them to lie in death ! 55 In other parts of his book, Mr. Eddy recom- 
wends the walks of Nature as highly calculated to enrich the mind 
with lofty meditations; and we are unprepared to explain how it be- 
comes an unholy exercise to go out in the stillness of th« Sabbatfe 



32 POWER OF SYMPATHX", EITHER WITH VICE OR VIRTUE 

morning or evening to breathe the life of God's glorious creation. How 
can he judge of the calm, silent thoughts which there pass through the 
soul? How does he know but God maybe adored and worshiped 
there, at times, as well as within consecrated walls? It is folly to at- 
tempt to make us all nuns and monks on the Sabbath. God and Nature 
forbid it. A quaint English writer filty observes: "Innocent laughter 
hath sometimes been proscribed as though it were a desecration. The 
thrill of friendship, the glow of affection, and joy in natural beauties, 
some theologians have disapproved of, as being in sympathy with fal- 
len creatures; and some have denounced them as loathsome and sin- 
ful, in such a manner, as though on the sixth day, God saw all that he 
had made, and lo! it was dreadfully evil! And indeed, of old time, 
there were many, and now there are not a few, who keep the Sabbath with 
such mortifications, as though instead of having blessed the seventh 
dayi and sanctified it, God had pronounced upon it a withering and 
almighty cursed* Devoutly, let us welcome the dawn of the sacred 
day, as the day of peace and worship to the soul. Its hours of wor- 
ship call with a divine voice, and lift us above the care and din of the 
week-day world. Let the church-bell come with its solemn sound, 
leading our willing footsteps to the temple of God, with hearts of 
prayer and praise. But between the hours of temple worship, we 
may not forget the greater temple, whose dome is the arch of Heaven, 
and whose altars are the fields, the floods and the hills, clothed in 
solemn grandeur and beauty. In the glad intervals of the holy Sab- 
bath, let not the toiling sons and daughters, whose week-day life is 
prisoned within grey walls, be denied the light, the beauty and the 
freedom of Nature. The weary body and the fainting spirit may glow 
with another being, with a purer heart of peace and praise, and a di- 
viner life, amid the smiles of God spread over the scenes of a Summer 
Sabbath in creation. 



(*Martyna.) 



AMUSEMENTS, USE AND ABUSE. 



Prov. 17: 22. — A merry heart doeth good like a medicines but a 
broken spirit drieth the bones. 

The greatest dangers of a city life to the young, are found in the 
search after amusements and pleasures. As yet, but few public re- 
creations have been provided, that have not some attendant tempta- 
tions. Perhaps we might s;iy that no public entertainment, of any 
kind whatever, is entirely free, at all times, from dangerous abuse. 
But pleasures and amusements are most liable to abuses. It is impossi- 
ble, however, to deny the need of something calculated to relax the 
mind. There is a general want of cheerfulness, of recreation, of mer- 
ry-heartedness, and of innocent entertainments to relieve life of its 
heavy burdens; to relieve for a time the oppressed spirit of its care, 
and to quicken the glow of health and happiness. It is now too lato 
in the world's history, to make the most intelligent believe that cheer- 
fulness is a sin, and amusements are all evil. The present generation 
will not abide by the standards which neither we nor our fathers could 
bear, either in morality and religion. We are beginning to learn that 
innocent enjoyment is quite compatible with Christianity. Neither 
the young nor the old can be doomed to a life-long penance of op- 
pressive gravity. Nature herself, as God made her, is sometimes 
buoyant, joyous and smiling; not always clouded and gloomy. And 
man, to be natural, must imitate nature. 

When we speak of existing forms of amusements, however, we con- 
fess the difficulties that arise. Are any of these forms wholly safe, — 

*E 



34 



AMUSEMENTS, USE AND ABUSE 



free from evil? Perhaps not; yet it would be difficult to condemn 
the whole as nothing but direct evils in themselves. And while it is 
difficult to condemn utterly and indiscriminately, it is equally difficult 
to give any of the present forms of amusements an unqualified recom- 
mendation. We might allow, for instance, that card-playing under 
certain circumstances, by certain persons, could be conducted without 
any direct evil; — yet who would recommend it to children — to young 
men and women— to families— parties— or to those who might abuse it 
for gambling purposes ? The danger of abuse is almost universal, and 
must prove sufficient to warn every reflective mind. Similar remarks 
may be made in respect to dancing. We may allow its healthfulness, 
its propriety, its grace, its beauty, under proper regulations. — But 
when we speak of those promiscuous dancing schools, cotillon parties, 
and balls, held to late hours, attended by the most exciting and be- 
wildering circumstances; we have no language too strong to utter our 
protest against them. Parents, and the young just entering upon the 
active scenes of life, should guard against such assemblages, as 
they would against the most exciting temptations. It is a serious 
question whether public dancing, in any of its present forms, with the 
usual attendants, can claim the encouragement of a moral and Christ- 
ian community. 

The Drama, as it now exists, is also exposed to many serious ob- 
jections. Most of its themes and accompaniments are below the de- 
mands of the age. The associations of the theatre are much of the 
base, the vulgar, the sensual character. Men and women of cultiva- 
ted taste and sensitive moral feelings admit this, and' seldom wish to 
be seen in some of the popular theatres. Yet, dramatic representations, 
of a truthful character, will never be wholly discountenanced. Indis- 
criminate denunciation against the drama is a mistake, and will never 
accomplish any desirable end. We need an exposure of the abuses, 
and a radical reform. When you call every drama a device of Satan, 
and every actor and play-goer, corrupt victims of Satan, you go to the 
extreme either of bigotry, or an easy credulity. But when the evils of 
the theatre are pointed out as they really exist, people may see and 
believe, and act according to their moral sense and intelligence. That 
there are evils, apparent and alarming, is unquestionable; and this 
fact may guide every young man and young woman coming to our 
larger cities. Were I to make allusion here to the circus or the am- 
phitheatre, I should speak in the most unqualified terms of reprobation. 
An amusement which has nothing but an exhibition of animal skill and 
equestrian dexterity to recommend it, must be the least attractive, if 



AMUSEMENTS, USE AND ABUSE 



S5 



not absolutely repulsive, to the morally and intellectually cultivated. 
How cultivated minds should be smitten with admiration at the sight 
of gross men, trying to imitate monkeys, apes, Indians and Arabs, is 
beyond the solution of our philosophy. 

But, that there is a demand for places of public recreation, where 
any who choose may attend, is indisputable, in spite of the existing 
evils. And how are the needed amusements to be secured without 
the evils? We need their establishment under the control of wise reg- 
ulations, and under the supervision of trustworthy men, appointed as 
the best judges of public want and weal. Of this we may rest as- 
sured; — unless recreations of a safe and innocent character are pro- 
vided, those of a dangerous character will be patronized and support- 
ed. How far the young should be restricted in participating in those 
amusements already named, the best judgment of community, and of 
each individual must determine. Had I a son, a daughter, or a friend 
to guide, I would describe the card-table, the promiscuous dance, the 
theatre, the circus, the bowling saloon as they are, and then with 
•prayers and appeals, I would entreat them to take heed, and tamper 
not with the least appearance of evil. 

A variety of entertainments already exist, without rendering it ne- 
cessary to resort to objectionable amusements. The social festival, the 
evening circle, the concert, the lyceum, the lecture, the exhibitions of 
art, science, and philosophy, — books, poetry, music, nature, — the soci- 
ety of friends, — the anecdote, the smile, the cheerful converse — the 
walk, the ride, the call, the visit, and all the places of innocent resort 
and recreation. Yet the culture and social condition of many, per- 
haps, are such as to deprive them of these sources of enjoyments; and 
society is still left in need of some general reform. The attempt to 
frighten or drive, or prohibit the mass of the people from all amuse- 
ments, has long failed, and wall continue to fail, and ought to fail; — 
for as long as human nature remains what it is, and ever has-been, the 
demand for amusement and recreation w 7 ill live, and ought to live. It 
is born in the infant, and speaks in its first smile, — it shows itself in 
the prattliugs of the child, — in the playfulness of the boy, — in the clear 
ringing laugh of the youth, — in the liveliness of the young man and 
the maiden, — in the sportive fondlings of the parent,— and in the 
household song'of home, as the mother pursues her daily rounds with 
a quick step and a cheerful heart. 

But while we allow a rational share of the lighter enjoyments of 
life, we may not forget the dangers of abuse, nor the graver realities 
of existence- There is a time and place for all things. The young in 



38 



AMUSEMENTS, USE AND ABUSE 



our citie3 have most to fear from the passion, the excessive and absorb- 
ing love for amusements; and woe to the victims of that passion, who 
become lost and bewildered amid the maddening elements of fancied 
pleasure. 

After looking through this book of "Lectures to Young Ladies," 
we are unable to find that the author allows any exercise of the cheer- 
ful sentiments of human nature. True, he tells us, (p. 241) " Instead 
therefore of looking with coldness upon those who are disposed to make 
life happy, I commend their purpose, 1 approve their course, and 
pray God's blessing on them." And further, (p. 26) "I am not one 
of those gloomy and unhappy men, who would shut up any path of 
innocent pleasure, or close a single avenue of sinless enjoyment." But 
what is immediately added? Read: "The world was made for our 
enjoyment, but we cannot enjoy it aright, — we should not enjoy it, 
while endless destruction awaits us at its close." In the same breath, 
the author goes on to show that there is no real happiness in this life } 
without having the fear of hell and the hope of heaven continually be- 
fore our eye?, and he informs us, that "endless destruction" threatens 
us all, and will probably overtake all those who attempt to enjoy this 
world, and refuse to tremble continually in view of a dreadful eternity. 
I know not what can be more 'gloomy' than this. How we can be 
happy while thunder clouds of everlasting wrath are rolling above our 
heads, is more than I can explain. f remember well the days of my 
own early youth, how they were all darkened by the overhanging 
cloud. I saw a frowning God, an 'arch enemy' of souls, an opening 
hell, and an eternity peopled with horrors, — all fearfully menacing, 
and all blighting the hours which might have brought joy and bliss. 
Day and night came the terrific visions; and life was a field of black- 
ened and desolate prospects. Year after year did that awful error of 
an early education weigh upon my spirit like the burden of burning 
worlds; and oh, I would have given worlds to have been rid of that 
cloud, and to see a Father in God, as I now see, beaming in the Gos- 
pel, and pouring his love over all time, all being, and all eternity! It 
is sheer madness to require men and women to be happy, while they 
believe that endless misery awaits them, of those they love, hereafter. 

Yet, hear what our author says, (p. 240 St. on) "God — has fitted up 
the great temple of nature in such a manner as to make it a scene of 
beauty and delight. — All around us is heard the cheerful voice of cre- 
ation, as she utters her testimony in regard to the provisions which 
God has made for the comfort and convenience of mankind. The 
eheerful smile, the glad voice, the happy heart, are ail consistent with 



AMUSEMENTS) USE AND ABUSE 



37 



the will of God.— Innocent pleasures are not injurious, but positively 
beneficial, and the enjoyment of them becomes a duty us well as a 
privilege. The idea which some seem to cherish, that this life is to 
be rendered as dark as midnight, and as gloomy as the grave, is a false 
idea." But how does the lecturer prove what he says? He goes on 
in the same lecture to show how we are all every moment threatened 
with an overpowering and appalling judgment. It is true, he assumes 
the correctness of his notions, and makes no attempt to prove themj 
but apparently delighting in the terrific, he launches out upon mere 
declamation, and works up a scene of the most frightful description to 
the credulous. Hear him, (p. 246) "It will come unexpectedly. It 
will send to the tribes of the earth, and the tenants of the tomb no 
warning voice! It will lift up no sign to tell a sinful race how soon 
they are to meet God. — Its coming may be delayed ten thousand 
years, or it may come to-morrow, — or ere I have had time to finish 
the sentence which I am now uttering.— The sheeted corpses wake to 
life, and in thick squadrons wheel their way from graves and tombs, and 
charnels. — On the narrow earth, which heaves as if shaken by a thou- 
sand volcanos, and riven by a thousand earthquakes, stand all who 
have ever lived. — On the great white throne sits the Judge. His coun- 
tenance is covered with terrible majesty, and His whole appearance 
indicates awful and uncompromising justice. At His look the sun goes 
out — the moon turns to blood, — the stars fall from heaven, — the clouds 
are rolled up and withered and parched, the elements melt, and terri- 
ble confusion covers all things." And then the scene closes with a 
climax of terror, and 'guilty ghosts and shrieking spirits' mingle in a 
doom of endless horror. "This," concludes the preacher, "is the end 
of pleasures. I might describe the fearful separation, — the awful sen- 
tence, — the terrible retribution, — but I forbear. Contrast in your 
minds the time of pleasure and the time of judgment, and remember 
that one will follow the other with terrible certainty." Here, then, 
our author prohibits all "pleasures," for here he makes no discrimi- 
nation — "this is the end of them." One moment he tells us to be hap- 
py, and calls this a happy world, and condemns those who attempt to 
make it 'gloomy;' but in the next, he covers the world over with the 
frown of an awful deity, and with the shadow of a doom that is ready 
to burst upon us with unimaginable horrors. It is like telling us that 
to-morrow, our city will be wrapped in fire, and thousands will perish 
in terror and torture; yet bidding us go home to-night joyous and 
happy, and making it our 'duty 5 to sleep in peace! 

But here let us ask, how many do we suppose are affected by these 



38 



AMUSEMENTS, USE AND ABUSE 



threatenings of a future, a distant doom? What do the people care, 
if the time is so far off? You can never convince them that they are 
going to die to-night, nor that the world will stop to-morrow. They 
have heard this too long to be much alarmed about it now. Those 
who believe in these eternal terrors, think they are far enough off to 
be escaped with ease; so they go on in their fancied pleasures, whether 
they are sinful or not. Their idea of religion is just like the lecturer's 
— gloomy, desolate, forbidding, despairing. On p. 28 he tells us "The 
world was made for our enjoyment," and on p. 252, he bids us "Choose 
not the pleasures of the world, for they are deceptive. Choose the 
pleasures of humble piety." And pray, what are the 'pleasures' of 
the 'piety' he would present, and the piety which enshrouds our earth 
in gloom? Our author is prolific in answer. On p. 32, we read, cc I am 
well aware that this world yields much pleasure of a certain kind. A 
thousand streams of happiness are flowing in upon us every hour. The 
ingenuity of man, the subtlety of Satan, and the wisdom, love and 
power of God, all conspire in making earth the abode of amusements 
and pleasures." In what a startling connection is that to place the 
name of God! — as though God were united in partnership with man 
and Satan for evil ! I cannot understand it. In the same paragraph the 
author continues, "But analyze the happiness derived from this world, 
and how worthless does it appear. It consists in an entire thought- 
lessness." He has just said that 'a thousand streams of happiness 
were flowing in upon us every hour, and that 'man, Satan, and God 
were conspiring to fill the world with amusements and pleasures.' 
Does he mean to say that the pleasures and amusements which God 
provides are to be classed with those of man and Satan; and all 
wicked, destructive, damning? Again, he tells us 'The world was 
made for our enjoyment!' I am amazed, confounded at such palpa- 
ble and shocking absurdities. And then, to give us the summing up 
of his whole idea in regard to the happiness and enjoyment of the 
present life, he adds in the paragraph before mentioned, (p. 24) "One 
thought of death and judgment would dissipate it all, and leave the 
soul in anguish. Such happiness precisely, the criminal might enjoy, 
if he would forget that he is standing on his scaffold, and imagine that he 
is on a throne," and then the preacher goes on to draw another ap- 
palling picture. Our city, and its living multitudes are described as 
rushing on impious and reckless, 'dancing over their own graves,' in 
'one long dismal procession, going down to the sepulchre,' doomed to 
the 'terrors of hell.' 

Our lecturer, of course, would have us all think of 'death and judg- 



AMUSEMENTS, USE AND ABUSE 



ment, as he fancies them to be; and he tells us that 'one thought 1 of 
these will 'dissipate all our happiness, and fill the soul with anguish.' 
So then we must all suffer ourselves to be made most unspeakably mis- 
erable; and this, this is the 'humble piety' whose 'pleasures are' re- 
commended to the admiration of the young, the old, the world ! God 
defend us from the blight and blackness of such a religion! 

What recreations or amusements our author would commend, we 
are yet unable to learn. In reading, he will allow nothing but books of 
the most sedate and profound cast. "Baxter's Saints' Everlasting 
Rest," and "Call to the Unconverted," seem his favorites. He is 
right in recommending History and the Bible, but appears to forget 
that the mind sometimes needs the relief of reading less laborious. He 
offers us one curious illustration of the interest connected with a peru- 
sal of the Bible, (p. 113) "We see no towns and villages wrapped 
iti the flames of the midnight conflagration, but we see 'the smoke of 
torment which ascendeth up for ever and ever." Misinterpreting this 
passage which has no allusion to the future state, he regards it as de- 
scribing the conditions of millions burning in literal fire and brimstone, 
and infers that it becomes more interesting, to read of these millions suf- 
fering forever in a lava-hell, than to read of 'towns and villages wrap- 
ped in conflagration !' But he speaks of another class of books "which" 
he says, "come up like frogs from the bottomless ocean of depravity." 
Without stopping to inquire whether the animal named ever lives at 
the bottom of the ocean or not, 1 pass to remark that our critic refers 
to fictitious works. And he adds, (p. 114) "I would.not be under- 
stood to bring a sweeping charge against all works of fiction. — There 
are a few which have a happy influence upon the progress of morals 
and public virtue— which may benefit us to read." But before he 
finishes the lecture, he seems to change his mind ? and says, (p. 121) 
"1 object to the reading of fiction because it is all bad — wholly un- 
profitable. It is unmixed evil without a shadow of good. It has no 
redeeming quality to recommend it to our attention. — It is all unprofi- 
table. It makes a bad mother and a worse child. It spoils a wife, 
and curses a sister." Then he goes on to denounce upon every fe- 
male reader of fiction the most scorching anathemas. "She will go 
from bad to worse — until she can read with a countenance all wreath- 
ed in smiles, a tale of shame and guilt which would bring a blush 
across the fire-proof brow of Satan himself." Then a woman can be- 
come worse than even the fabled Demon! — "She cannot long be free 
from the crimes and vices spread out before her." It is dangerous, then, 
for these "Lectures to Young Ladies," to be read—- for they spread out 



A jM 0 ti £ XL » T », USE 



crimes and vices entirely beyond the parallel of ordinary fiction. — 
"The reason why so many females are given to fictitious reading is, 
because of a secret love of crime." Here again, is manifest the au- 
thor's opinion of female virtue, — and he assumes the prerogative of 
judging the secrets of the heart. — "Novels are the spawn of Satan." 
— "Religious novels — add hypocrisy to shame, and blasphemy to cor- 
ruption,— are Satan's masks— are an emanation from the bottomless pit." 
Well, I believe there is not a tract society, — a denomination,— a Sun- 
day School union — or a religious press in the land but hos sent out 
works of this character. Does Mr. Eddy mean to say that the Church 
is the 'bottomless pit,' and its members are engaged in manufacturing 
masks for Satan? It is remarkable that after our author becomes so 
rank in his hatred of everything of a fictitious character, he should, 
in this very book, give us several quotations from fictitious writers! 
It is still more remarkable that he should quote from Festus, one of 
the wildest, yet most sublime books of poetic fiction ever written ; and 
one, too, which entirely repudiates his peculiar views of theology. 

Suppose we adopt the sweeping criticism of our author upon all 
works of ideality; we must condemn some portions of the Bible, — 
Homer, Plato, Horace, Dante, Cervantes, Scott, Dickens, Goldsmith, 
Shakspeare, Pollock, Milton, Hannah Moore, Bunyan, Mrs. Hemans, 
Sigourney, Childs, Judson, and a host more of the purest and loftiest 
intellects that have ever shone in the firmament of the literary and 
religious world. I have already alluded to the discrimination to be 
made in reading works of the imagination; and while I am the last to 
denounce everything of an ideal character, I would be the first to exe- 
crate most of the fictitious trash that floats about us, as infamous as it 
is cheap. 

And here I must pass Mr. Eddy's "Glance at the Theatre" and 
"Circus," with only a brief notice. His description of the circus is 
absolutely indescribable, except to minds of his own taste and capacity. 
He tells us how the horses, elephants, monkeys, men and women, all 
act. The performers 'act like mad-men — idiots — brutes, and last, like 
— devils.' This, we fear, is very much like vulgar profanity. Of the 
spectators, he asks, (p. 77) "Have they come on earth to behold a 
eight of folly which is not found in hell?" He then, very quietly dis- 
poses of them by saying, "They are those who are pressing on with 
rapid strides to meet the retributions of the damned!" — thus taking 
upon himself the authority to sit in judgment, and to close the farce 
of the circus with an awful, eternal tragedy! 

His 'glance at the theatre' is much in the same vein, though worse 



AMUSEMENTS, USE AND ABUSE 



41 



if possible. And what is singular, he alludes to some things of which 
a minister should be ignorant, and to others of which he certainly 
does know but very little, yet ought to know more. He ought to 
know, for instance, that the theatre in New England has been impro- 
ving instead of retrograding in moral tone, and that many evils which 
were formerly allowed openly, are now strictly prohibited. He in- 
forms us that females often take their places 'in the pit' of the theatre, 
while the regular 'pit,' so called, is always known to be exclusively 
for men and boys. Having no fancy for the scenes and characters 
which he sketches, I shall omit them here as unfit for repetition be- 
fore any audience of chastity and intelligence. Such sketches can do 
nothing but disgust the pure minded, and inflame the passion, the 
curiosity of the weaker and less cultivated part of community. They 
are just such sketches as the low actor would like to hear, and the 
maddened play-goer would applaud, while the ignorant would won- 
der, and talk about going to see and hear for themselves. 

It is a dangerous thing for a young minister to appear too bold, da- 
ring and wise in exposing and portraying scenes of vicious amuse- 
ment and illicit pleasure. He may clothe his warnings and descrip- 
tions in language too warm, vivid, and familiar; and he may throw 
around vice, a false enchantment, a thrilling romance which shall win 
to its embrace more than are frightened away. 

There is nothing like the simplicity of truth and virtue to win the 
young to paths of pleasantness and peace. If the warning is needed, 
let it speak, saying, "There is no peace to to the wicked," for "Verily, 
there is a God who judgeth in the earth." Each day must conscience 
keep her account, and remember each night that the reckoning is at 
hand. In all the walks of life, whether at home or abroad, in the 
workshop or the field, in the throng or the lonely retreat, each heart 
must decide its own pleasures or pains, and each bosom make its 
present hell of woe, or its present heaven of joy and peace. 



V. 



RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY. 

Luke 15: 82. — It was meet that v:e should make merry, and be glad, 
for this thy brother ivas dead, and is alive again; and was lost and is 
found. 

The redeeming traits of human nature can never become completely 
obliterated. The Prodigal Son furnishes touching illustration of the 
fact, that the most wayward are not wholly beyond the reach of re- 
formation. Had that young man been entirely corrupt, while aban- 
doned to wanton and riotous indulgences, his case would have been 
hopeless. But there came intervals of memory and meditation when 
he paused in his folly, and yearned for a better life, and the home and 
innocence of his early years. And when at last he arose and returned 
to his father, and was kindly welcomed, a new vigor was added to the 
better impulses of his nature. But had that young man expected no 
better treatment from his father and other friends than he received 
from his elder brother, no thought of attempting a reform would have 
entered his mind. That elder brother considered him a graceless 
wretch, lost to home, God, virtue, and wholly beyond recovery. He 
would have made the prodigal believe this too; he would have dis- 
heartened him, crushed him, and with Pharisaic indignation, would 
have driven him away again into crime, wretchedness and ruin. 

There is a theology in Christendom which would prompt us to 
treat all the erring in the same manner. It first tells us that there is 
nothing virtuous or true in our nature; and then, when the erring act 
according to the dictates of this nature, because they are naturally in- 
capable of acting otherwise, it pours out its seven vials of wrath upon 
them, and at last dooms them to a state of hopeless woe. What results 
might attend such a view of human nature, we can easily conceive. 



RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY 43 



Go to the weak and the fallen; tell them there is nothing in their souls 
but sin; that their hearts are utterly vile, tending always to evil; that 
vengeance broods over their heads with denunciations of an appaling 
perdition, — agonizing beyond the power of human thought, and almost 
inevitable. And would you not crush the weak heart at once; extin- 
guish the last spark of hope and virtue, and drive the fallen into a deeper 
abyss of guilt and despair? Yet this is the legitimate treatment of a 
popular religion towards the erring, it doles out its doctrine of total 
depravity; — it advocates, as humane, and even divine, laws dark with 
wrath and bloody with cruelty. It supports the gallows; — it advocates 
the most rigid and relentless code of criminal punishment; — it calls the 
sinner an outcast of God. exposed to infinite ire;— it peoples the world 
with demons, and places an arch Devil upon the throne of a wide 
kingdom of darkness, — and lastly, it would keep man in terror and 
dismay with threatenings of torture beyond description. 

This is a plain and severe portraiture, I confess; but true. I would 
thank God, were it false; but the truth must be spoken. I am promp- 
ted to make these remarks by the book of "Lectures to Young Ladies" 
before us. But, while I speak of the theology of this book, let it be 
remembered that I am speaking of the theology prevalent in the au- 
thor's church, and in all the nominally 'evangelical' churches in our 
midst. This work, by the pastor of the 1st Baptist Church in Lowell, 
may answer as a popular text book of the Orthodox views of justice, 
mercy and humanity; and I use it merely as such; not because it pos- 
sesses any peculiar merits worthy of critical attention. And here I may 
offer a remark, in which some, perhaps, may not agree with me. I 
venture the opinion that the greater portion of the most intelligent men 
and women of the churches around us, on reading this book, would at 
once condemn the manner in which he has treated his subjects. If they 
could approve the terrific imagery, w hich Mr. Eddy so constantly drags 
into these discourses, and the language with which they are so copiously 
interlarded, then I have given them credit for more intelligence than 
they possess. I know not whether it was on this or on other ground, that 
the author was unable to obtain. a Baptist publisher to issue his lec- 
tures, and was compelled to take the name of a gentleman who had 
no sectarian interest in the concern; but this is certain,— it is confessed 
that the author's portraitures are destitute of both taste and propriety. 
How is it that we hear this complaint from those who believe pre- 
cisely with the lecturer;— who hold the same opinions of human na- 
ture, and the same views in regard to depravity, divine wrath, hope- 
less misery, despair, devil and hell? Mr. Eddy is a sanguine young 



44 RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY 



man, and in his hasty ambition to appear fearless, has spoken out 
freely, boldly, perhaps, honestly. He believes that human nature is 
altogether evil, and that the guilty must be doomed to hopeless dam- 
nation! Why, then, should he not preach it? This is the belief in- 
culcated by a prevalent theology. Mr. Eddy has spoken it out, and 
deserves credit for his frankness. Let men speak what they believe 
without the disguise of smooth sentences or melodious measures. We 
have enough already of this mellow, mealy-mouthed preaching, which 
never tells us what is believed. Ministers have their creeds, but 
when they stand before libera) and intelligent audiences, they often 
dislike to say plainly what those creeds are, lest the people become 
uneasy under the preaching of such hard and harsh doctrines. Hence, 
those who complain of the severer features of this book, must find 
less fault with the author himself, than they do with his creed and the 
prevalent creeds of his church. 

Many passages have already been quoted from these "Lectures, " 
showing the hopeless views, entertained by the author, of our com- 
munities and our race. I proceed now to make further quotations of 
the most startling character; and while I do this, let it be recollected 
that Mr. Eddy's views must be adopted by all who adopt the preva- 
lent theology. On p. 105, he makes it a duty "to love God, and do 
good to ail. Point sinners to Christ — warn them of danger — lead 
them to Calvary, and on all mm utter ceaseless blessings."" Now 
mark this in contrast with what is said on p. 18; "Every unrenewed 
person is under the ivrath and curse of Gee?." By the 'unrenewed,' 
of course, he means all who have not passed through the forms of church 
conversion, and all who make no profession of what is called 'evangeli- 
cal' religion ; — therefore, the great masses of the human family must be 
regarded as 'unrenewed,' and 'under the wrath and curse of God.' 
Yet we are required 'to pronounce ceaseless blessings on all men.* 
How can we do this, I ask, while there is nothing in them but depra- 
vity, — nothing worth blessing? How can we do them any good, if 
'God's wrath and curse' are on them, and against them ? If God hates 
and curses them, how can we love or bless them? Are we more merciful 
and better than He is? I know not how it can be. On p. 226, the 
author would have the 'virtuous portion of community look upon the 
guilty with disgust, 5 and desert them entirely. But in the passage 
just quoted, he enjoins it upon us to 'do good to all, and on all pour 
ceaseless blessings,' After all his denunciations, it is with a poor 
grace that he recommends us to practise charity and benevolence to- 
wards the erring. Having told us that the majority of our commu- 



RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY 45 



nities, including Quakers, are violators of the Sabbath; in regard to 
all Sabbath-breakers, he goes on to add, (p. 210) "There is another 
and more fearful way in which God will take vengeance. He will 
consume the heart, and pour torment on the soul. — They will find that 
all the commands of God on this subject, and all his threatenings of 
vengeance against such as violate them, are full, — awfully full of 
meaning." Yet, while Mr. Eddy is pouring out these infinite curses 
upon nine-tenths of the race, and while he says that God is doing and 
will continue to do the same thing, he turns around and coolly exhorts 
us poor sinners to love everybody and bless them ! Who cannot see 
there is no room for love, mercy, or benevolence in the doctrines of 
damnation and depravity held forth in this book, and in the prevalent 
theology! How can the preacher ask you to cherish a being whom 
he denounces? How can he command you, in the name of God, to 
love one whom he tells you God hates and curses, and will cast off 
forever? Shall we be commanded to smile upon our fellow-men, 
while the Almighty stands ready with thunder-bolts of wrath to hurl 
millions beyond all hope of mercy, either human or divine! O, mon- 
strous paradox! — let Heaven be spared the blasphemy! 

Merciless and despairing views of humanity are found in almost 
every lecture of this book. But the author's comparison between 
man and woman, presents us one of the most revolting pictures. In 
regard to man, he says, (p. 15) "When he falls, he may be reclaimed. 
— But when a woman falls, in the multitude of cases, she will rise no 
more. Wealth cannot hide her shame; intelligence cannot conceal 
it; friends cannot erase it. When a woman enters upon a course of 
crime, she seldom stops, and the first step she takes into the path of 
open guilt, seems to convince her that all is lost. We expect among 
men to hear profanity, and witness drunkenness and debauchery ; 
these things seem congenial to the hard rough nature of man, and when 
they appear, though they may grieve, they do not surprise us; — but 
an oath upon a woman's lip, the fiery cup raised in her trembling 
hand, the smile of wantonness passing over her countenance, fully 
prove, that 

'When to ill her mind is bent, 
All hell can find no fouler fiend. 5 " 

Were I a woman, I should pity the man who could entertain so poor 
an opinion of my sex as this; and he may be pitied for the miserable 
opinion he seems to entertain of his own sex. In one sentence he tells 
us that 'when man falls, he may be reclaimed,' yet in the next he tells 
us that 'the hard, rough nature of man makes crime seem congenial.' 



40 



RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY 



Now, if crime is most congenial to the nature of man, how is he the 
most likely to be reclaimed; and why should woman, the gentler, the 
purer, the more lovely and sensitive be denounced as irreclaimable? 

Denunciations just like these, when she has erred, have crushed her, 
doomed her to despair! — banished her from society, and guarded 
every avenue by which she might reclaim. Let a fallen female be 
branded by the whole community, as Mr. Eddy brands her, and with 
terrible certainty, she is driven to deeper infamy and wretchedness. 
Alas, that ministers of Jesus should join with the sneering Pharisee 
and libertine, to heap odium, and contumely upon the weaker victims 
of error. How is it with man? — Is he more easily reclaimed from in- 
iquity? He may succeed better in concealing his sins, and in forcing 
his way into virtuous society. But how is his moral nature? Look 
into his bosom, and you will still find there the lurking demon. Alas, 
for woman! She has not the available art of concealment; and while 
her destroyer is moving in the highest circles, respected as a gentle- 
man, admired for his polished manners, or courted for his wealth; 
still the same cold heartless villian in disguise; she, the less guilty 
partner of his crime, is cast out as lost, — an infamous, irreclaimable 
wreck. And why is it thus? Because men and ministers say she is 
so, and in some measure, compel her to be the vile thing they repre- 
sent her, by treating her as if she were so already. O, it is pitiful 
to think how many are thus driven away from society, home, friends; 
from all the influences that might redeem them, to seek that brief, but 
intense, thrilling, but fatally poisonous happiness, found in the cup of 
maddening, wild, intoxicating, illicit pleasures; and soon to find a 
home in that grave which alone can hide them from the sneers and 
frowns of the world. 

The nature of woman is most keenty alive to virtue and love. Her 
life is in the purer and loftier affections. When these are blighted, 
she is left wretched and desolate indeed. She is trustful and confiding 
in her sympathies ; and if these are violated, she is robbed of her 
dearest earthly treasure. If her virtue ever for a moment wavers, 
she needs the sympathy of friends to strengthen and sustain her. 
But if in that moment she is abandoned, all her affections are chilled, 
and all her confidence is lost. And what now is left her? O, could 
she but feel one warm, generous hand extended for her relief and re- 
demption; could she but hear one kind word of sympathy; could she 
but see one tear shed over the anguish of her crushed heart, she 
might still hope. But no; she is driven away! away! Nothing is 
leftc but to hide herself in infamy and hasten through the short and 



RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY 47 

despairing career of vice! O, the Christian world, what ministeries 
of mercy has it yet to learn in behalf of the tempted, the fallen, the 
unfortunate! 

Let us now attend a moment to the language which the lecturer 
holds forth in reference to the erring classes. I take no pleasure in 
quoting it, yet, as it is printed and published, I may repeat it for the 
purpose of showing its tendency. He is addressing the females of his 
own congregation, and warning them against the company of corrupt 
hirelings of sin; (p. 174 &c.) "They will pretend to hate vice, and 
yet breathe it into your ear at every word they utter. They will lead 
you from virtue's holy summit, down the deep descent to death, — amid 
music and songs, they will hurry along the broad road, making you 
believe that every thorn which pierces your feet is a rose — that the 
sulphurous stench which rolls up from the dark abyss beneath, is the 
incense of Paradise, and when they have brought you to the edge of 
the pit, they will point their jewelled fingers — push you off, and bid 
you go alone. And you will go alone ! God will desert you ! Angels will 
desert you ! Good men will desert you ! Hope will desert you ! No, you 
will not go alone. Satan will be thy companion. At every step — he will 
pour fresh torment on your distracted heart. Infernal spirits will catch 
you in their burning arms — breathe upon you their blazing breath, 
and hug you to their fiery bosoms. In all your eternal passage, they 
will screech and howl around you, making the chambers of hell re- 
sound with their yells of exultation. Despair will hover around thee 
— death shall mock thy agony, and all the legions of the damned shall 
shout thy requiem." There, if there is not enough horror and fero- 
city in that picture, where will you find enough? 

But where does the preacher learn that God and good men, and 
angels must abandon the wicked to the endless torture of fiends, with- 
out hope or mercy ? We read in the Bible 'That God is good unto all, 
and that His tender mercies are over all His works; 5 and that ''His 
mercy endureth forever, 3 'from everlasting to everlasting; 5 that 'He 
is kind to the unthankful and the evil; 5 that 'He will not contend for- 
ever, nor always be wroth; 5 that 'His loving kindness shall never ut- 
terly fail; 5 and that c He will not cast off forever, but will haye com- 
passion according to the multitude of his tender mercies. 5 But where 
are his tender mercies displayed in the awful scene of Mr. Eddy^s im- 
agination? It is solemnly true, that sin must be visited by severe and 
searching retributions; yet God never can inflict a useless, a hopeless, 
an endless, a crushing woe upon his own wandering children* He 
chastises the sins of his offspring like a Father, seeking only the good 



48 RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY 



of his children, and all the punishment he permits, shall come in mercy 
as well as justice, for the ultimate reform of the offending. Many 
may wander away so far as never more to return in the present life; 
but the love of the Father follows them, and in the immortal life, he 
will gn ther them home, saved and redeemed by that grace which is 
sufFcient to reclaim a world. The father of the prodigal boy spurned 
not his son because he went off wild and wicked, and came back at 
last, and was clothed in guilt, and wretchedness; — but he welcomed the 
prodigal with warm embrace; changed his garments of infamy for those 
of honor and virtue. O, it had been hard for that poor wanderer, had 
he believed his parent armed with wrath and curses, as the preacher 
would have the erring ones of our race believe of God. And, oh, if 
it must be so, that the fallen can only look forward to a day when 
God and angels, and good men, and all but demons will desert them 
in their despair y wonder not that they in their present despair, rush 
recklessly onward, lost to all but the madness of fierce, bewildering 
pleasure. Wonder not that parents, friends, society and the world 
turn coldly away, and leave them in hopeless abandonment. 

And while Mr. Eddy and his theology are attempting to brand the 
guilty with infinite shame and disgrace, I cannot forget that Divine 
One, who said to a guilty woman, "Neither do I condemn thee; go 
and sin no more." Who had condemned, and cast her off with curses ? 
They who were the most self-righteous, yet most guilty ; they who 
despised Jesus because he sought out the poor, the weak and the fal- 
len. It needed the mission of a Jesus to teach men that there is some- 
thing worth redeeming, even in the lowest of mankind ; that, even in 
the darkest bosoms, slumber the fires of affection, faith, hope, and 
charity, which, through the gentle ministrations of love, may yet shed 
abroad the clear, beautiful light of a holy and divine life. If men 
would devote but one half the time and pains they now waste in spy- 
ing out and describing scenes of guilt, to the labor of redeeming those 
who are wandering, they would accomplish a thousand times more 
good than they can, by circulating their offensive details of depravity 
and crime. 

The benevolent idea becoming developed in our time, is that no 
class of society is wholly beyond the reach of reform. We admit that 
many are dying in crime; that many grow worse and worse until their 
career is ended, and that some seem to defy all means of reformation. 
But in most of these cases, it will he found that there has been a lack 
of kindness, or of the proper and seasonable mode of treatment. The 
labors of men like Howard, Hooper, Augustus, the Spears, and of 



RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY 49 



women like Mrs. Fry, Child, Farnum and others, prove that the guilty, 
even the most degenerate females may be reclaimed. The cause of 
much utter abandonment has been owing to the want of efficient re- 
formatory means and efforts. There has been a shameful neglect in 
this department of reform, — while in almost every other, the public 
mind has been continually agitated. On this theme we find an im- 
portant article in a recent No. of the English "Quarterly Review." 
Speaking of the fallen female, the writer says, "The question is not, 
whether she is to suffer, and suffer severely, but whether she is to suffer 
ivithont hope, without a chance of repentance, without the means of es- 
cape; whether she is to lose all and forever? Ought we to forget our 
Saviour's treatment of fallen woman?" It is too generally supposed 
that this class is utterly irreclaimable, and that there is no desire 
on the part of the victim to return to virtue. But by the report of the 
Magdalen Institutions and moral Penitentiaries existing in England, 
we learn that more applications for admissions are made than can be 
granted, and that more than half of the applicants received have been 
permanently reclaimed. The report of the Westminster Asylum says, 
"Many of those who are looked upon as the outcasts of our species, 
are anxious to leave their guilty course, and are entreating to be re- 
ceived into the asylum," but for want of means, the institution is un- 
der the "painful necessity" of turning many away. And from all in- 
formation at hand, I believe that institutions of a similar character in 
our own country give us reports and facts of a corresponding nature. 
It is lamentable to witness the false delicacy, the contumely and 
scorn, with which the daughters of shame and misfortune are 
treated. Only a few years have passed since we first learned that the 
inebriate could be saved; and now most of the Christian world has 
yet to learn, that many of these frail and fallen sisters may still be re- 
deemed. What has been their condition, and what is it now? Go 
and ask those who ruined them; and how many of them shall we find 
to have been left defenceless, unguarded, unprovided for, pressed by 
want, irritated by ill usage, worn by hard labor, heart-sick with suf- 
fering, rendered desperate by the prospect of beggary ? How many, 
driven, in a moment of despair, or indignation at the wrongs they 
have suffered, to take the fatal step that plunged them into the madden- 
ing whirl of sin. And who goes after them with an earnestness of 
heart and a strong arm to save them? Alas, none, or but very few! 
Even woman sometimes turns against her frail sister, and often ca- 
resses the destroyer more than she pities the victim. If they are lost. 



30 



RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY 



why are they lost? At most, it is because no one seeks them in time 
to save. They are left as the outcasts of society, doomed to shame, 
to infamy, and an early death S 

And here let me offer my solemn conviction, that a merciless theology 
has done much to harden the public heart against the erring, and thus 
rivited the fetters that bind them in their degradation. Hear how our 
lecturer speaks of the 'wanton woman,' (p. 100 & on) "The very air 
she breathes is poisoned— the ground is polluted by her tread, and if 
she touches your hand, she will leave the slime or the viper there. — 
Could you behold her true character, you would see her nostrils snort 
flames, and her mouth vomit forth fire-brands, arrows and death. 
She is an incarnate fiend — a female devil." She is bad enough, it is 
true, but Heaven knows that this portraiture is too diabolical for any 
child of the human family created in the image of God. Again, the 
author says, in speaking of the female given to the use of improper 
conversation, impure books, and indelicate pictures, (p. 99) "God 
save her — she is beyond our aid. She came to the crowded city, pure 
and virtuous — no stain of guilt was on her head. She was followed 
by prayers and supplications, and benedictions; but she has fallen into 
the hands of the destroyer. Write lost! lost!! lost!!! upon her crime 
crimsoned brow, and sin bleached cheek; and send home to that prey- 
ing father and mother, and tell them that their child is damned ! ,s 
But would Mr. Eddy like to go to that father and mother, and tell them 
this ? The parents might start up in grief and horror, and ask, 'What f 
why ?— is she dead and gone?' "No," the preacher replies — "but she 
has sinned, and I have cast her out from society; 1 have followed her 
to the grave with anathemas; I have preached her funeral sermon, 
have set the seal of damnation upon her soul, and have sent her down 
to hell, lost! lost! lost forever" ! I leave it to be judged whether this 
is, or is not, a correct construction of the lecturer's terrific declama- 
tion. And how many of the weak and fallen, believe you, can ever 
become encouraged in virtue, or reformed from vice by language like 
this? It is appalling enough to blast the tried and tempted with des- 
pair; to sink them with terror and dismay; to extinguish the last hope 
of parents, friends, and philanthropists, for the redemption of the er- 
ring. O, Christian, go not to that wandering prodigal, or to his 
father or mother, with a message like this, fraught with hopeless an- 
guish and despair. But go with the faith and love of Him who came 
to seek and to save the lost; — with His faith in the all-redeeming grace 
of God; — with His faith in the lowest and darkest of fallen souls; and 



I 



RUINOUS SEVERITY TOWARDS THE GUILTY 51 

in many homes once wretched and forlorn, may be heard again the 
grateful song— 'The dead is alive, and the lost is found ; blessed be the 
name of Him who hath changed our mourning to joy, and restored to 
our stricken hearts the loved and the lost, 3 



VI. 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS. 



Ezek. 12: 13. — Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. 

In the preceeding lecture, I dwelt mainly upon the mode of treating 1 
the tempted and the erring. It was contended that humanity, even in 
its worst phases, is never wholly lost, or entirely beyond the reach of 
redeeming influences. Here, perhaps, in the minds of some, arises an 
objection against this liberal view. It may be said, that while we 
treat the erring with kindness, we are holding out encouragement for 
them to continue in evil; inasmuch as they are taught to believe there 
is a chance of final recovery. I reply, that the tempted and the guilty 
seldom seriously consider anything beyond the present hour of mad- 
ness. They are usually driven thoughtlessly along before the whirl- 
wind of passion. If there is any thought, it is of a final escape from 
the consequences of their guilt. And here the prevalent theology in- 
curs a most fearful responsibility. It teaches that the retribution of 
sin may be escaped by repentance at any time before this life closes; 
that men are not rewarded or punished in their deeds, but a longtime 
after, in eternity. Virtue is not made its own intrinsic blessing, but 
the means of gaining admittance to heaven hereafter, and of escaping 
a future hell. Nor is vice held up as its own retributive curse now; 
but as something that will consign the sinner to woe in another world, 
if he dies without repentance. But what sinners expect to die thus? 
None; hence multitudes go on sinning, utterly reckless, under the in- 
fluence of these popular views of retribution. And why is it, they 
are unrestrained? Because the appeals are wholly of a selfish char- 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS 



58 



acter. There is no appeal to the moral sentiments, to conscience, to 
principle. The hope of heaven, and the fear of hell, are the only ar- 
guments for virtue, or against vice. 

This book of Mr. Eddy's, fully confirms all that we might say here. 
It scarcely contains a single exhortation to virtue, for virtue's sake. 
In fact, the purest virtue and morality are condemned, unless prac- 
tised under the influence of motives drawn from prevalent creeds. 
True, the author says, (p. 88) "When woman's lips are attuned to 
words of kindness, sympathy and love, she presents herself as God de- 
signs she should, a ministering angel to stricken man;" yet in other 
places to which I have already refered, he informs us that ail this vir- 
tue in the 'ministering angel' is abominable in the sight of God, unless 
she is a slave to the hopes and fears of an eternal state. He would 
have our virtue wholly of a mercenary character. We must serve 
God, or he will never take us to heaven, but will hate us, and send us 
to an endless hell. This seems to be the great moral of all his lec- 
tures, and may I not say, the great moral of the popular preaching for 
ages past? I find in this small book, more than fifty allusions to hell, 
judgment and eternity, and some of them of the most terrific charac- 
ter. On p. 24, a fearful 'judgment,' in the future world is dragged in 
three times, to frighten away all thought of present enjoyment. In the 
same lecture, he 'paves eternity with tortures,' talks of the 'terrors of 
hell,' 'endless destruction,' and the 'terrors of God's wrath.' On p. 
142, he sees the sinner 'plunged off to the judgment in an awful state 
of unpreparedness;' and then he follows up the description in language 
too forbidding for repetition. He pursues a female from one step to 
another, through life, beyond death, and sends her shrieking in de- 
spair from the Divine Presence, to wail in woe forever. His last lec- 
ture is mostly employed in representing the same blasphemous picture, 
of a universe wrapped in terror, and trembling beneath clouds burst- 
ing with almighty vengeance. He tells us of the profligate woman, 
who goes on (p. 53) "until every act of her life is full of death and 
damnation, and crowned with a coronet of living fire, she plunges into 
eternal perdition, to take her seat by Satan's side, and reign as queen 
of hell !" His warnings are invariably closed with something drawn, 
not from heaven, from conscience, or the blessedness of Christian vir- 
tue, but from beneath. Vice 'damns man's soul,' 'turns woman into a 
fiend, and plunges her down to hell,' and "makes eternity, one long, 
protracted, bitter picture of agony, of remorse and despair;" (p. 185) 
and this is the summary of motives presented in these lectures. If 
the author occasionally attempts to commend virtue for its own sake. 



t 



54 TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS 

or to reprobate vice because it is vice, he soon abandons the uncon- 
genial task, and begins to wander again through the awful and terrif- 
ic visions of a diseased imagination. He seems to revel with delight 
in fancied scenes of infernal horrors, and labors like an actor to pro- 
duce an effect, to make his auditors start, and stare, and tremble. Like 
an actor, I say, because it is morally impossible for a man to feel all 
that he describes, without going utterly mad when he thinks of it. 
Do Mr. Eddy and those who preach and believe with him, begin 
to realize that the human family are hastening by millions down to a 
world of woe, to suffer and howl forever in flames amid demons dam- 
ned and torturing ? Tell me not that men can feel this, and yet go 
along our streets, bowing and smiling, amid 'dismal processions,' hur- 
rying on to endless night. Our author attempts to describe (p. 156) 
the scene of a daughter dying in sin. He points* out the father, the 
mother, the friends around her bed, and tells us of their agony. But he 
can present us the picture without a tear or a sigh, and multitudes, 
unmoved by sympathy, can listen to his description with admiration, 
and go away praising the preacher for his eloquence in describing hel! 
and its horrors with such terrific vividness. Yes, Sunday after Sun- 
day, people are running with almost idiotic wonder and astonishment, 
to hear these appalling descriptions; to hear themselves doomed to 
ceaseless infamy and anguish. And they call it beautiful ! They pay 
men for it ! and they hear without alarm. Were their houses on fire, 
and were they in danger of the flames, they would fly in terror. But 
they can hear of that fire in hell, without feeling and without fear. It 
is a great way off, and there is plenty of time to escape. Were they 
told that they deserve to be burned at the stake, or sent to prison a 
few years, they would resent the slander. But they can be told that 
they deserve to be burnt, and shut up in the prison house of hell for- 
ever; and they take it calmly, and pay the preacher for it, and call him 
a "splendid speaker," with the utmost good nature. Here in these 
lectures; (p, 16, 120, 166,) the author, in the very face of his audience, 
gives them a character, and consigns them to a doom, to which no 
honest man or woman would listen in the social circle, without the 
deepest indignation. But, coming from the minister, while in his 
desk, it is all just and admirable ! He may stand before a promiscuous 
assembly and say what he pleases. But suppose he takes his place 
in the social circle, in company with the influential and respectable, 
but unconverted members of his congregation; and, turning to the 
ladies and gentlemen around him, begins to address them there as he 
does from the pulpit, Suppose he politely tells them they are devils 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS 



55 



at heart, corrupt by nature, and bound to hell ! No, no !— he will never 
do that. When he preaches thus, he never means to be understood 
as personal. He means some poor wretches, somewhere— somebody, 
none know or care anything about, — and his hearers so understand 
him. He never means them. 

The little influence for good, which these theological terrors and 
denunciations have over the multitudes, conclusively proves their use- 
lessness and folly. Some few may be kept under an external restraint 
for a short time, but the masses will continually grow more careless 
and indifferent. If the greatest retributions and rewards are post- 
poned to a future state, they argue that life may be spent as they 
please, and no great loss be endured at last; for 

"While the lamp holds out to burn, 

The vilest sinner may return;' 3 

escaping the worst of his retribution, and finally gaining a reward in 
heaven as happy as the best. And besides, these terrific descriptions of 
a hell and misery without end or measure, are calculated to harden 
and deprave the heart. The bloody horrors of war and the gallows 
we all know are adapted to produce a state of insensibility, by being 
repeatedly witnessed. The more most of men hear and see of the 
awful and appalling, the less they fear. Hence, the masses who 
have heard so many terrific descriptions of hell, have now become 
quite fearless and hardened. They hear and feel as though they were 
witnessing a well acted tragedy at the Theatre, — or as though they 
were listening to a recitation from Homer, Dante, or Milton. It is 
magnificent fiction, but they doubt whether it contains much matter of 
fact. I appeal to the clergy themselves in proof of what I say. They 
will own that the great body of their audiences sit and hear these ter- 
rors as though they neither felt nor believed. And they will own it is 
now all folly to think of alarming the best part of their hearers, and 
that these periodical excitements can produce no permanent benefit. 
And it would seem that nothing but an obstinate adherance to old 
creeds and prejudice against liberal Christianity, now stand in the 
way of the most intelligent portions of the clergy to prevent them 
from discarding the terrific style of preaching, so long proved to be ut- 
terly inefficient. 

In reading these 'Lectures to Young Ladies, 5 it were impossible to find 
those motives to virtuous life and character which are indispensable. 
Native virtue, springing pure and spontaneous from the human heart is 
condemned, and an austere religion is commended in its place,— a 
religion, whose chief motive to a holy life, is servile fear,— fear of 



TENDENCY OP PREVALENT DOGMAS 

eternal tortures, fear of loosing heaven, fear of the fury of fiends and 
the fiery pit. It is not because virtue is lovely of itself, bringing a pres^- 
ent reward, that we are required to be virtuous; but because it will bring 
us a future good. And we are warned against vice, not because it 
does violence to our nature, and to the laws of God, duty, right and 
conscience.; but because it may at last expose us to an infinite incon- 
venience and misery. We are not required to obey the commandments 
of God, because obedience is just, pure and peaceful, bringing a pres- 
ent reward; or because God is our Father, merciful to us all, and by 
His goodness, ever inviting us to repentance; but because the Al- 
mighty is said to be enraged against us, and will doom us to eternal 
ruin, unless we appease Him by bowing and trembling before Him. 
On p. 250, our author speaks of God as 'infinite and unbounded in 
love;' but in the very paragraph preceeding, he describes His "counte- 
nance covered with terrible majesty, and His whole appearance indi- 
cates awful and uncompromising justice." And on p. 157, he repre- 
sents Him "sitting as Judge, stern a justice, and terrible as hell ! Ter- 
rible as hell! — and the hell which Mr. Eddy portrays ! God of hea- 
ven ! — forgive the impious thought. And if He is as terrible as hell, 
then that fabulous region and its fabulous devil are no worse than 
heaven and its deity ! Is this the Being worshiped and loved and 
adored by the pastor of a church in this Christian land, — a Being 
'awful, stern, uncompromising, and terrible as hell !' I know nothing 
of such a God, and pray heaven I never may. I have no love or rev- 
erence for such an appalling, fictitious Moloch; and who shall ever 
^ask me to love or adore a being as terrible as hell — and no better? 
The God of which you and I read in the Bible and in Creation, is a 
Father — is a God of love— forever bending in tenderness, in mercy, 
in benevolence over all the children of His creation. Neither time nor 
eternity can ever change Him into a foe, fierce with vengeance against 
helpeless and perishing millions of His own offspring. No! He has 
sworn to redeem, and has sent the Son as a Savior of the world. His 
grace and mercy shall reign triumphant over the bowed, the penitent, 
the ingathered spirits of a universe. 

It is remarkable to observe with what cool deliberation the lecturer 
assumes the truth of strange assertions so liberally used in this book. 
If he quotes scripture, it is only in disjointed fragments, and begs his 
audience to take it for granted that no one doubts but the Bible teaches 
the doctrine of a future general judgment, — the existance of a terrible 
hell of fire and brimstone, and the plurality of personal devils. He 
knows, and many others older than he, know it to be easier to assume 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS 



57 



than to prove by correct argument and interpretation. Theological 
difficulties entirely disappear before the vividness of his imagination. 
But tell him, according to the Bible, that hell never means either a 
state or place of endless suffering — that the judgment of God is never 
placed beyond the present world, — that fire and brimstone are only 
figurative of temporal punishments, and the wings of the preacher's 
imagination are clipped at once; and he has lost the chief materials of 
his evanescent eloquence. After drawing one of the most appalling 
of his pictures, the lecturer pauses, as if doubtful whether he will be 
believed or not, and adds, (p. 158) "I shall be charged with straining 
the picture which I have now presented. But 1 am convinced that 
not one of you all, will say I have overstated, or colored the picture 
too strongly, ivhen we stand before the bar of God." Here, then, he 
postpones the proof of what he is saying, to the far-off future world. 
This is certainly a very convenient way of avoiding the trouble of 
producing evidence which he is unable to find; though many will 
question its propriety in the common affairs of life. Suppose I 
warn a man of his sins, and tell him if he keeps on, he will become 
endlessly miserable. But he doubts what I say, and asks me how I 
will convince him. I reply that I may not be able to make him be- 
lieve now, but when we meet in eternity, I shall convince him that I 
have told the truth without the least coloring. But unfortunately, 
that man needs to be convinced now, in order that he may repent and 
reform; but as I am unable to give him the evidence, any farther 
than my assertion goes, he begins to doubt whether there is any oc- 
casion for alarm; and since I have referred the matter to a future 
world, he is certain there is no danger very near at hand; so he goes 
on in his old ways of evil. I ask the candid, if this is not the very 
tendency of the received views of retribution and judgment? They 
turn the thoughts, the fears, the hopes of men almost entirely to the 
future world, and leave them still in doubt; without the motives, the 
incentives, the convictions indispensable to a present life of virtue. 
When a thief was told that he would get his punishment at the 'judg- 
ment day, 3 he replied that he should have stolen more had he known 
the day of trial was so far off. And this is the reasoning of multi- 
tudes under the loose belief of a prevalent theology. It has been 
the dying confession of thousands. It is the delusion that has thrown 
around sin the charm of present pleasure, and inspired the hope of an 
ultimate escape from all its consequences. 
There is a species of pulpit Quixotism extant which is ever battling 



*H 



58 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS 



against the world, with a mock bravery that would be ludicrous, were 
it not a mockery of solemn things. It magnifies evils, converts them 
to giants, and then makes fierce war upon them, to show its own 
valor and skill in demolishing men of straw. Ministers who are all 
smiles and civilities to everybody while out of their pulpits, and who 
hardly dare express an opinion, for fear of offending some one, so 
anxious are they to be agreeable, — can go into their pulpits on Sun- 
days, and lash their congregations and all the|world beside, as though 
they were the most fearless men that ever walked our planet. If I 
mistake not, those "Lectures to Young Ladies" partake largely of 
this mock chivalrous spirit. There is a constant effort to say some- 
thing fearless, startling, terrible, unheard of before; and yet there is 
a slavish species of imitation. We should think the author had taken 
some lessons from Jacob Knapp, and was quite familiar with Beecher's 
"Lectures to Young Men." 1 know not but he dreamed that his "Lec- 
tures to Young Ladies," would match well with Beecher's, though I 
think Mr. Beecher would not feel himself very highly flattered by such 
a compliment. The lectures of Mr. Beecher, abating a few passages, 
are of the highest character; and had Mr. Eddy quoted more from 
them than he has, and omitted some of his own language, his book 
would have been improved, and less exposed to suspicions of plagiar- 
ism. And in several places where he quotes poetry, had he quoted 
it without preceding it with long passages, the ideas of which are 
borrowed entirely from the poetry itself; he would have done more 
justice to his poets, and gained more credit for literary honesty. 

It is not in place here, perhaps, to take the post of critic in refer- 
ence to the literary merits of this book; yet in passing, were I per- 
mitted to pause a moment, I should remark that an author, who un- 
dertakes the instruction of young ladies in the present age, should be 
careful not to allow his productions to go before the public, full of 
such errors, logical, grammatical and rhetorical, as would dishonor a 
school boy. He should guard against confounding all rules of correct 
composition, as in calling "fashion," (p. 85) first a "god," then "it," 
then a "godess," in the same paragraph; thus exhausting the whole 
catalogue of genders upon a single subject. And in warning young 
female operatives against the allurements of fashionable dress; he may 
take heed lest his warnings are turned into mirth by some ludicrous 
lack of information in regard to spinning and weaving; for should he 
speak of a 'coarse shawl, ivoven by a mother's hand, at a ivheel,' 
(p. $8) those whom he is attempting to teach, might smile in his 
face, and inform him that shawls are not usually 'woven' on wheels, 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS 



59 



but in looms. When he compares bad 'thoughts' with a "nest of 
serpents that hiss and hoot," (p. 65) he must give some light in regard 
to this genius of hooting serpents, for most of us never heard of them 
before. But the small errors in writing and speaking, common to all 
men, should never detract from real merit. Yet an author who places 
before the public, a book defying criticism, (p. 8, 9) must not expect 
that his defiance will conceal ignorance, or compensate for bad taste. 
In addressing young ladies, good taste would seem quite indispensa- 
ble. These remarks will not be thought severe, when we reflect that 
'satan,' c devil,' 'devilish,' 'fiend,' 'fiendish, 5 'demon,' 'hellish,' are 
common epithets which this book applies to women. And that "ga- 
ping holes of hell" — "w n turn topsy-turvy" — "bedaubs" — "rep- 
tile's hiss" — hyena's growl" — "half naked dances" — "bedaubed your 
reputations" — "infernal lust" — "damning crimes" — boiling, fiery hell" 
— "the sinner's fiery pillow" — "as hideous as hell" — "death and dam- 
nation" — "a disgusting snarl" — "obscene" — "licentious" — "harlot" 
■ — "prostitute" — "miserable dupes of Satan employed by the court of 
hell," — are some of the choice words and phrases embellishing these 
lectures addressed to young ladies! And for the most of this phrase- 
ology, I confess that the author is much more indebted to the popular 
theological nomenclature, than to his own originality; and that the- 
ology must be revised, before the vocabulary can be improved. 

In the lecture on "Attention to Health," the preacher alludes to the 
injury of excessive labor, and very severely censures the operative for 
working so hard and long. He might, with some propriety, refer to 
this subject; but instead of throwing all the blame upon the operative 
alone, why not allow some of it to rest where it belongs — upon em- 
ployers? Who makes it neccessary for them to labor fourteen hours 
a day, with only a brief intermission, hardly sufficient to satisfy the 
cravings of hunger? If there is fault here, let it fall upon those who 
are most responsible; and not upon the operative, who is unable to 
remove the evil, or even attempt it, without being severely rebuked, 
and perhaps, something worse. Mr. Eddy is careful not to drop a 
hint concerning employers; they must be treated cautiously. But he 
becomes remarkably bold in condemning the operatives for things en- 
tirely beyond their control. I do not say that manufacturing labor is 
regulated in every respect as it should be; nor that it is wholly free 
from evils and abuses. I freely admit that there are difficulties in the 
way of an immediate change. Our corporations are under a super- 
vision superior to that of any similar establishments in any other part 
of the world. Our manufacturing population is composed of the 



60 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS 



most virtuous and intelligent members of society; and, although some 
evils have increased, others have been diminished; so, that on the 
whole, a gradual, but permanent reform has been effected. 

There are some curious discrepancies in the book under notice. 
On p. 44, the author says, "These rules" — on the observance of health 
— "you will gather from other works, which I trust are in the hands 
of every female I am now addressing." Yet in all these lectures, he 
conveys the idea that he is addressing those who are wholly ignorant; 
— who care nothing for any thing serious or scientific; — who never 
employ the least time whatever for their improvement, and who read 
nothing but novels and books of the most questionable character. In- 
deed, it is very doubtful whether Mr. Eddy really believed that these 
works were in the hands, or even known to one half of those he was 
addressing. But there is no doubt but he designed to pay them a 
very flattering compliment just at that moment. 

In many passages of these "Lectures," the favorite hell of the 
preacher is represented as intolerably hot, burning with literal fire. 
But on p. 156, he speaks of "the chill hell." It is beyond my ability 
to conceive how it can be fiery and chilly at the same time; but this 
may be as consistent, perhaps, and as easily explained, as many other 
things upon which this book edifies us. The author frequently repre- 
sents the guilty as wholly depraved, lost to all virtue and shame, — 
morally dead, — without a single good thought or deed. In short, he 
calls them 'fiends, 5 'devils.' Of course, then, conscience must be ob- 
literated; for 'devils' and 'fiends' can hardly be said to have conscien- 
cies. But on p. 244, he says, "To his immediate condemnation, the 
conscience of the sinner himself bears witness." Again he adds, 
(p. 245) "Sin brings the curse with it. A vicious course involves the 
loss of character — a consciousness of guilt, a fearful amount of suffer- 
ing." But if the sinner is utterly depraved, how can he have any 
conscience — any moral perceptions? And if sin brings its own curse 
here, why is the sinner pursued with vengeance through eternity? If 
the fearful sufferings of a just punishment are all that is needed; _God 
knows that the guilty suffer enough here, without being doomed to 
endless torture and despair. Where is the poor sinner, upon whom 
you, or Mr. Eddy, even, would pour the curse of endless agonies, 
ever increasing in horror, and would see him suffer, and hear him 
wail forever without hope ? And will the Father, who is all-wise and 
just, and merciful, doom his own children to such misery? It cannot, 
cannot be ! 

j3ut to follow our author, (p, 244) "Conscience continues to utter 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS 



61 



its ceaseless upbraidings, until the criminal has passed beyond the lim- 
its of time. And it will ev r en continue to upbraid him, until for relief, 
he shall fly in torment to hide himself in the deepest caverns of the 
bottomless pit." But how he can find ' relief 3 in such a place, we 
are not informed. And soon after he is sent to seek such relief, and 
is eternally condemned, the lecturer, calls him and all the universe 
up to a grand tribunal, to re-examine and re-judge his case, and con- 
demn him over again, and again send him back to seek relief 
in a 'bottomless pit V In the preceding lecture, (p. 236) the preach- 
er tells his hearers, that "the company they select here, will be their 
company hereafter. — We must live to all eternity with the abominable 
and the vile." Well, if men are wholly "abominable and vile" by 
nature, inclined to evil and averse to all good — 'fiendish,' 'hellish,' 
'devilish,' and in love with sin; such would be the company most con- 
genial to their natures, and consequently, most conducive to their hap- 
piness. And if conscience can become hardened in wicked society 
here, it may become still more so there; and all hell be turned into a 
wild carnival. But where is our lecturer's authority for a represen- 
tation of this character? Does he suppose that the scenes, the asso- 
ciations, the circumstances which surround us in this world, will exist 
in the eternal world, and will influence us there, as they do here? If 
not, we must suppose a higher order of things, — a change in the mode 
and condition of being — a change from the mortal, to the immortal, 
from the corruptible, to the incorruptible, from the weak to the pow- 
erful, from the dishonorable, to the glorious, from the natural, to the 
spiritual, from the image of Adam, to the image of Christ, from the 
earthly, to the heavenly; a change in which a moral universe shall 
willingly pass through the regeneration of omnipotent influences, that 
'God may be all in all.' 

But I have already spent more time upon these "Lectures to Young 
Ladies," than many will think they deserve. It has not been my aim 
to bring this matter forward as a personal controversy ; nor to present 
our author as a man, in any unenviable position; but to speak mainly 
of that illiberal and censorious spirit, in which he, and others of sim- 
ilar religious opinions, judge of society and the world. In substance, 
I have already remarked, that while popular creeds teach that human 
nature is totally corrupt, and under the curse of almighty wrath which 
may continue forever; we may not wonder that our city, and the cities 
and villages of our country at large, are denounced as they are, and 
that the erring are followed with sweeping anathemas. And these 
creeds must be abandoned before we can expect more liberal views 3 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMA S 



and more benevolence towards the offending. And here, I cannot close 
without drawing a painful moral lesson from the influence of a preva- 
lent Christianity. If our city and country at large, are growing worse 
and worse, and are really as bad as our author represents; what a 
startling comment is this fact upon the tendency of the still popular 
theology. Here in our midst — and the proportion will hold the same 
throughout the country — we have nearly a score of churches devoted 
to the preaching of what are claimed to be, the 'evangelical' doctrines 
of morality and religion; and these doctrines are nominally believed 
by the majority of the people, and of course, are exerting over them 
their legitimate influences, whether for good or otherwise. They are 
interwoven with the strongest prejudices, and are identified with the 
early education of the multitude. They have been preached in all 
their majesty and terror for ages, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, are 
still fearfully thundered to the people. And their dominion over the 
masses has been almost absolute and complete; and yet we are told 
that these masses, — the people,— are growing worse and worse. If 
so, why is it, and who are at fault? There is an awful responsibility 
somewhere; and these undeniable and startling facts must be met. Be- 
fore Gorl, I ask the preachers and professors of these doctrines to con- 
sider them with candor and solemnity. Yet alas, how long has our 
appeal been in vain. Ministers still keep on fulminating their old 
dogmas of terror; and with the experience of centuries before them, 
are still contending for their superior moral influence. But thank 
God, another era is dawning. The theological 'reign of terror' and 
sectarianism is passing away, and principles of loftier motives are 
spreading through mnny of the most active and elevated minds in our 
.age. 

I am aware that the course I have taken in these lectures, will not 
be entirely approved by the friends of Mr. Eddy, nor by all who agree 
with him in religious doctrine, but disagree with him in regard to the 
merits of his book. But if my course does not vindicate itself, I shall 
not attempt to defend it. I may be charged with having distorted and 
misquoted Mr. Eddy, but I submit what I have said to an impartial 
investigation, and leave justice to decide. It may be said that I have 
attempted to apologize for prevalent vices and follies, in order to hide 
the fearfulness and enormity of the evils. And I would reply, if God 
has granted me that spirit which enables me to think and speak char- 
itably of the erring and of humanity in general, I am thankful for it. 
Imperfect as we all are, it is not our place, neither is it pleasant or 
profitable to be always searching after nothing but the imperfections 



TENDENCY OF PREVALENT DOGMAS 6£ 

of others. The more we search, the more we shall find, whether we 
search for good or evil. And white we are inspecting sin with a 
low curiosity, applying our microscopes, to discover all its hideousness; 
we are losing sight of virtue, and forgetting that there is something 
good also, which we may examine and describe. But, though ours is 
even the broad and generous charity of Christianity, we may not en- 
tirely pass over the follies, the crimes, the wrongs around us. AVe- 
cannot conceal the fact, that temptations and dangers stand thick in 
our midst — intemperance, recklessness, demoralizing amusements, li- 
centiousness, irreligion, dissipation and sensualism. Let the parent, 
the young man, the young woman, keep on the watch with a spirit, 
vigilant and strong in that truth and virtue, and religion which alone 
can shield them from moral ruin. But while we are sufficiently watch- 
ful, and discriminate in regard to existing evils, we need not become 
universally suspicious, and loose all confidence in virtue and human- 
ity. We shall never make the world any better by calling it hard 
names, and making it appear much worse than it is. If we look 
about us, we shall find many women and men as good as we ".re, and 
some better. We shall find that our villages, large towns,- cities and 
country at large, embrace much more virtue than vice^ The better 
portions of community are found in the majority, wherever we go;, 
unless we go into the dens of infamy, and the worst sections of our 
larger cities. A distinguished clergyman of New Orleans, recently 
writing to a friend in Boston, remarks, "Even in this far off emporium,, 
with respect to whose inhabitants, Northern Christians so often ex- 
press contemptuous opinions; the good, in the most extended meaning- 
of that phrase, far preponderates over the evil." And what may be 
said of New Orleans, may certainly be said with stronger emphasis 
of all our Northern cities, not even excepting Lowell! 

And now in the light of all that has been said, I hasten to close 
If I have spoken plainly in disapprobation of Mr. Eddy's book, it 
has not been in any ill feelings towards the author himself; for i hold 
him in civil respect as I do all the clerical fraternity in this city, with 
whose acquaintance I am favored, and with whom I am happy to be 
united in some common aims for humanity. With most of them, I 
may confess an honest difference in religious sentiment, and I ask 
nothing more than the frankness and the liberality I am ready to exer- 
cise. There is no pleasure or profit in these sectarian animosities, and 
the less they appear in our social, religious and reformatory measures, 
the more hopeful and happy the results upon society. 

If I have spoken warmly in these lectures, it is because I have felt 



TENDENCY OF PltEVALENT DOGMAS 



keenly the need of awakening a new interest in behalf of Liberal 
Christianity, as the only agency of true reform. Its view of man as 
the image and offspring of God, b< >und in one everlasting brotherhood, 
its view of divine truth, grace and benevolence, mighty to regenerate 
a world long lost in the night of time, and its hope for the vast 
kindreds of our race; show its effi cacy and power as the only instru- 
ment for the destruction of evil and the advancement of humanity. 
And this is the redeeming influence that is working in all the better 
movements of our age, — working for universal progress, — for the uni- 
versal reformation of man from fill wrong, and error, and crime, and 
for the advancement of the kingdom of universal righteousness, liber- 
ty and peace. 



ERRATA. 



In preface, for "repetitions," read repetitions. For "paliation," 
p. 6. palliation. For "lays," p. 6, lies. For "addional," p. 7, addi- 
tional, For "He," p. 9, — he. A paragraph should be made, p. 14, 
fourth line from top. For "pervades," p. 14, pervade. For "a," p. 
30, an. Last par., p. 30, for "he, he," he. For "of," last line 2nd 
par., p. 36, or. For "appaling," p. 43, appalling. 



X W3 



